Full Circle, A RedQueen Story
by FoxoftheDesert
Summary: An AU full length story written in honor of Red Queen Week 2015. It is the day before the curse hits and Red is desperate to find something, an item that will later remind her of what really matters in life and of the price she's willing to pay to protect it. In doing so, both she and Regina will learn that life is a circle that has very strange ways of coming back together.
1. You, too, Red?

**Intro Notes** : This story was born out of an idea that's been done before but that I couldn't resist playing with and manipulating to my own ends. I hope everyone who reads this little work of fiction enjoys the result because I know I very much enjoyed writing it! It is presented in honor of Red Queen Week 2015, but I would be remiss if I didn't also mention the handful of amazing writers out there who have written Red Queen (you know who you are) and who are responsible for getting me hopelessly addicted to these incredible ladies. It's all your fault! /sob Despite that addiction, Ruby and Regina thank you for their journey and so do I. This goes out to you and to every fan of Red Queen, past, present, and future.

In case anyone in the future who reads this prefers to read it on Archive of Our Own, it is posted there as well, along with more comprehensive notes.

*Edit: Removing all AN due to posting more thorough ones on AO3. If anyone is interested in them, they can be found there. Final edit completed as of 12/4/15.*

 **Standard Disclaimer** : The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately and I will correct them.

 **Chapter 1** – You, too, Red?

Red frowned as she rifled through her clothing drawers, searching for her necklace. She had hidden it immediately upon arrival because it was a gift from her lover, an item which she held more precious than any of her other belongings, including her relatively priceless cloak. Whenever she was absent from the Royal Castle, which she had been for nearly a week, it was never removed from around her neck.

Her most recent excursion was for the sole purpose of spending some quality time with her paramour, and while Snow had been understanding about the evasive explanations that were offered, Red knew the time of such lenience was rapidly drawing to a close. Soon, the baby would be born and Snow would be free from the restrictions of bed rest, thus the business of running the Kingdom would reassert itself in her mind. Free from distraction (though Red was loathe to call such a blessing as a child a distraction), it would only be a matter of time before Snow began to notice Red's more frequent scouting trips and her increasingly long patrols during Wolf's Time.

In order to delay the inevitable confrontation that would ensure between herself and her best friend, Red had decided that her most recent furlough would be her last for a while. She'd made it count. For most of the week, she'd not left the warmth of her lover's bed for more than necessity's sake and the memories they had made would go a long way toward sustaining her through the weeks to come. They would have to because it was going to be nearly unbearable to go so long without seeing the person who had stolen her heart away like a thief in the night. But for the sake of her friendship with Snow, it was necessary that Red put some distance there, and besides that, with it being so close to the time of Snow giving birth Red wanted to be present for the final preparations. The baby was going to be her godchild, after all.

Still, Red was no fool. Since she had been keeping the affair a secret from her friends for over a year, she was careful about appearances. And while it was easy enough to to avoid questioning about her strange behavior by maintaining a mask of latent sadness around Snow and David, it would have been much more difficult to explain away the sudden presence of a remarkably rare and expensive piece of jewelry hanging around her neck. For that reason, she always made sure to secret her necklace away lest they discover her wearing it, for an item of such unique value would have surely piqued interest far too much for her to plausibly explain away, and Red was not yet ready to be found out.

She knew she was being selfish in behaving in such an immature way but she wanted to remain in the blissful space she had carved out for herself as long as possible. For too long her life had revolved around her obligations both to the Kingdom and to her Granny and Snow. It had been over three years since Red stumbled upon Snow asleep in Granny's chicken coup, and almost every day since had been devoted to her friend's cause. Only once did Red think about herself for a moment and that had ended in tragedy. Now that she had found a measure of happiness that belonged to her alone, she did not think it asking too much that she be allowed time to indulge in it.

Snow, on the other hand, would not share that sentiment, and thus Red's clandestine behavior in leaving the castle and for her diligence in ferreting away her necklace. The fact that Red was having to hide anything at all from her best friend was depressing enough to consider. After all they had been through together, she hated that the deception was even necessary, but it was, though it lingered between them like a festering sore that got picked raw every time Snow looked at Red with those trusting green eyes of hers, a trust which had been built with care and forged in the fires of the Queen's hatred into something Red had thought indestructible.

Out there in the wild being hunted, she and Snow had been forced to learn how to depend on one another, to lay their lives in each others hands on a regular basis. Because of that, the kind of trust and comradeship they had was implicit and precious. Yet, Red had been putting that trust at risk every day for the past year, which tore at her conscience almost incessantly. It was only out of fear of breaking Snow's heart (and her own in the process) that she did not spill her guts to her ignorant friend.

Red didn't want to imagine what kind of reaction Snow would have to finding out who she was sleeping with. Bad would be an understatement. Despite being her best friend, Red did not believe Snow capable of understanding her predicament considering the other party involved. There were simply too many wounds there, along with too many bad memories for Snow to think rationally about Red's admittedly questionable choice in a lover. Thankfully, the current Queen of what once was George's kingdom had remained blissfully unaware of the illicit relationship Red was embroiled in, and while tempted to make excuses for her friend, the fact was Snow had simply been too busy with her own life to notice such a dramatic change in Red's.

That wasn't to say that Snow was completely self-absorbed, but the young Queen had an unfortunate tendency to be ignorant of what was beyond her own little bubble of happiness, and at the moment, Red was very much outside of that bubble. It felt strange being so distant from Snow having spent so long basically joined at the hip with the petite and spunky bandit who rather than the chickens she might have commandeered from Granny stole Red's loyalty instead, and who went on to inspire Red's undying friendship. Honestly, it felt like Snow was slipping away at times, like she was being pulled away from their girlish camaraderie by the pressing needs of responsibility and of love. Most of the time, Red wasn't really sure how to feel about that except that it stung, because however unintentional, Snow's distance felt like rejection.

Even so, Red couldn't muster up enough anger to confront Snow about her willful ignorance. It was hurtful, yes, and very disappointing that Snow had overlooked Red's current state of happiness, but after having fought so long and hard to restore Snow to her rightful place, Red was content for the moment to persist on her feelings of satisfaction at seeing her friend so happy. How long that would last she couldn't predict, but she didn't want to be selfish beyond what her conscience could endure, and that's just what she felt like would happen if she were to disturb Snow's bliss by revealing that she had taken a lover. Then there was the consideration of who Red's lover was, which made her particularly determined for the source of her current happiness to remain an indefinite secret.

And that brought Red back to the problem at hand. She hoped that it was her own memory in error or that a servant had stolen her necklace because the alternatives were too terrifying to consider. If Snow had been the one to discover it...well, it wouldn't take more than a minute for the deceptively clever woman to figure out who Red's secret admirer was. The person's identity would be revealed by the pendant alone, which depicted a crescent moon wrapping delicately around a globular gemstone of such uniquely translucent and luminescent quality that it would be obvious where it came from. There was only one place in all of the Enchanted Forest that such gemstones could be found and only one person who had access to them.

"Where is it?" Red rhetorically asked, aggravated because she could not find her precious gift.

Decided to eliminate the possibility of faulty memory, she wracked her brain over her placement of it. She could distinctly remember placing the necklace in the drawer containing her cloak and traveling journal, but when she looked it was not there. She had then proceeded to search the rest of the drawers to much the same result, which prompted Red to nearly turn her quarters upside down. It was all to no avail.

Somehow, the necklace had disappeared, which both angered and frightened her. What if it had been discovered? The thought terrified Red, though she rationalized with herself that if Snow had found it, she would have confronted Red immediately. Still, with the necklace so obviously missing from its place, if Snow had not taken it, someone else had. Her breath hitching in her chest, Red fought against the urge to panic. She had to find that necklace. To her, it was so much more than a piece of jewelry, and today of all days, she couldn't abide being without it.

Earlier, Red had been tasked with the unpleasant duty of checking up on Rumplestiltskin, the current resident of the magical prison located deep within the bowels of the Royal Castle. To Red's discomfort, when he'd seen her approach, his face transformed from the skulking misery that was decorating it into an expression of immense joy.

"Well, well," he'd trilled, dancing in place impishly, "if it isn't the Queen's new plaything. I see Regina has captured herself a particularly dainty prize: a living, breathing, and might I say, exquisite werewolf. Tell me, has she taught you to fetch yet?"

Red had visibly startled at that. "W-What?" she'd stuttered, eyes wide with fear of being discovered. Checking around for potential eavesdroppers, she'd dropped her volume when she next spoke. "You're mistaken, and please keep your voice down."

"Why?" he'd quirked a brow. "It's obvious you're proud of your status as Regina's royal lapdog. Come to think of it, that makes you the lapdog of two monarchs. My, my, you've been a busy pup, dearie. Such conflicts of interest." Giggling, he leapt forward and grasped the bars of his cell. Red reacted on instinct, leaning back at the sudden movement. "I never pegged you to be someone worth my attention, but suddenly, you've become fascinating."

"As I said," Red restated, her voice quavering, "you're wrong."

Rumplestiltskin grinned knowingly. "Tisk, tisk, little wolfie. You needn't tell a fib and you should know better than to lie to me. First of all, you're terrible at it, but secondly, I can smell the Queen's magic on you. And shouldn't I know it?" Twirling his finger in the air, Rumplestiltskin spun around once in place and then made a flourishing move with his head. "I was her instructor after all, so her magic smells….well," he grinned, his lizard like eyes and sharp teeth gleaming in the torchlight, "like me."

Breathing heavily, Red ducked her gaze to avoid the Dark One's piercing stare. It was like he saw right through her. She felt naked and exposed in a way she hadn't since Regina had first peeled her clothes away, layer by layer, until Red was left standing nude before a sultry Queen's appraising gaze. But unlike with Regina, Red felt no appreciation, no honest desire, only a calculating measurement of her usefulness both in the present and in the future.

"Now, now," he spoke once more, his voice losing its mocking edge. "No need to be shy. In a few scant hours, none of it will matter."

Red's head snapped up, her eyes returning to Rumplestiltskin. "What do you mean by that?"

Stepping back, a thoroughly satisfied smirk formed on his face. "Hasn't she told you what she's done?"

"Who's done what?" Red growled, stepping forward with a low rumbling rattling in her chest.

Making an interested noise, Rumplestiltskin tilted his head to regard Red. "I suppose the affection is only one way then. That's too bad. I had such high hopes for you."

Her eyes turning yellow, Red grasped the spear-like bars of the cell over where the Dark One had been holding them moments before. They groaned under the strain of her wolfish strength. "Stop with the deflections," she barked, "I'm getting annoyed."

Tutting, Rumplestiltskin meandered back over to the bars and leaned toward Red, grasping them just above her own hands. "We wouldn't want that, would we? As we both know, an angry werewolf on the loose normally means a trail of bodies left in their wake...or at least, what's left of them. Doesn't tend to be much, does there?"

The veiled reference to Peter made Red even angrier and she felt herself snarling, baring her teeth threateningly at the imprisoned imp. Sighing, he backed away and shrugged as if suddenly disinterested.

"But as I said, soon it won't matter," he continued. "The Queen has cast a curse, you see, the darkest, most sinister curse ever created." Lifting his hands up to his chest, Rumplestiltskin looked so proud as to be fit to dance. He began to approach once more in a predatory fashion. "A gift from yours truly. Soon, this entire realm will be swept away into a land without magic, all of their memories erased. After it takes effect, you won't remember this conversation. You won't remember Snow White or Prince Charming. You won't even remember your beloved Queen. In fact, you will not be yourself, but a twisted version of you that will live in perpetual unhappiness. Everything you know and love will all...be...gone..." with these last ominous words, he leaned forward until his nose was pressed almost to Red's, a wicked grin painted across his excessively sharp features, "forever."

Stumbling back as if struck, Red shook her head. "No. She wouldn't."

"But she would and she has."

Her bravado having all but crumbled and now questioning everything she thought she'd learned about Regina over the past year, Red beseeched the untrustworthy imp for an answer, "Why?"

Walking away from Red, the Dark One made his way to the back of the cell where he sat primly upon a rock outcropping that was utilized for a very uncomfortable chair. He then crossed his legs, rested his hands on his knee, and fixed Red with a look that sent a chill down her spine.

"That would be a question for Regina to answer, now, wouldn't it?"

Realizing he was right, Red had fled the prison to the background echo of a sinister laugh. Feeling as though time were sand slipping hopelessly through her fingers, she immediately went to her chambers to fetch her necklace. If what Rumplestiltskin told her was true, her memories would be gone, but perhaps the necklace could act as a totem, grounding her to reality. But regardless of whether it would have an effect or not, and even if she lost herself as the Dark One claimed, she wanted it with her when she was swept away by whatever was awaiting her on the other side. It would be all she had of Regina, and whether she would be aware of it or not, Red needed the comfort of its familiar weight around her neck. Which again brought her back to the present.

"Dammit!" she shouted, slamming the last drawer shut she had just finished double checking. Distraught, she slid heavily down to the floor, leaning her back against the dresser as she pulled her knees up to her chest. She allowed her head to slump down into the space between her body and her legs, trying to fight back tears.

"Looking for this?" A very familiar voice called out from the doorway of her chambers a few moments later.

Red's head jerked up to find a very disappointed looking Snow hovering in her doorway. Despite the Queen's short stature, she seemed overly imposing to Red in that moment. Swallowing thickly, Red's eyes cut to Snow's hands, where her sought-for necklace was dangling from outstretched fingertips. With wide eyes, Red glanced back up to find Snow looking at her in pained accusation.

"Snow!" Red gasped, surprised to even see the woman up and about with her child due at any moment now. Forgetting her distress for a moment, Red scrambled up from her position and crossed the room in three long strides. "What are you doing up? You should be resting!"

"Oh, bah," Snow frowned, dismissing the very idea. Her green eyes never wavered from Red, holding the werewolf spellbound with their intensity. "I was tired of being bedridden and tired of Charming's constant hovering, so I thought I'd walk the halls a bit to relieve my stress. As I did, rather aimlessly I might add, I happened to pass by your chambers. For whatever reason, I was suddenly reminded about our time together as outlaws. It made me nostalgic for those days, I think because quite frankly they are behind me now."

Sighing, Snow paused in her speech, pushed her way past a silent Red into the chamber, and then waddled over to the bed. After plopping down on the edge, she focused her attention immediately back on her suddenly guilt-ridden friend.

"Anyway," Snow continued, seated in as erect a manner as possible considering her swollen belly and aching back, "I remembered that you had kept a traveling journal that we both used to record our more memorable adventures in and that you kept it in the drawer with your cloak. I've seen you place it there many times. I thought you wouldn't mind if I read through it for old time's sake."

Lifting up the pendant in front of her face, Snow studied it carefully. It was clear to Red by the recognition in Snow's face that the fears which drove her to hide it away had not at all been unjustified.

"I never imagined I would find such a lovely trinket hidden away there in the folds of your cloak. And my, what an exquisite gemstone in the pendant. I haven't laid eyes on an ametite since my father banned them from being mined when I was a child. And it's setting is a crescent moon to boot – how fitting. A gift for you, I presume?"

Having lived with the woman for so long, Red understood that Snow's roundabout questioning was an extended opportunity for her to openly admit what Snow already knew. Feeling ashamed at her secrecy, Red blushed and ducked her head, but mostly, she was scared that her friendship with Snow was about to end, or at the very least, be forever altered. The thought of losing Snow's friendship nearly suffocated her with anxiety. After all they had gone through together, Snow was so much more to her than just a friend: she was a sister, Red's only true family outside of Granny. To lose that after all this time would be a devastating blow.

Still, Red couldn't find it in herself to feel sorry for the love affair that precipitated this confrontation. The past year of her life had been the best by far. There wasn't a moment she'd spent with Regina that she regretted. Even their disagreements were precious to Red. She knew now without a doubt that she had found her happily ever after, the only problem was getting Regina to recognize that as well. While it was unlikely to ever happen, Red was far too in love to give up now, which was why she was soon to leave the Royal Castle behind for the last time.

"Well?" Snow prodded when Red did not answer. "Have you nothing at all to say?" When Red again held her tongue, Snow stood carefully and then crossed the short space to stand in front of her. She held the necklace up between their bodies so that the pendant was on full display – as if to rub Red's nose in the indisputable evidence of her treachery.

When Snow spoke again, her voice was laden with betrayal, but the longer she spoke, the more it morphed into a mournful kind of sadness.

"I'm surprised," she said, her green eyes piercing. "This gift is very impressive, indeed. Beautiful and very extravagant. You should be proud of it, and yet you're silent. I wonder why?" For a moment, Snow let that question linger in the air, but yet again, Red held her peace, torn between the truth and its potential consequences. "Perhaps it's because I know exactly from whom this necklace was a gift. After all, the gem in the pendant is the rarest in the Enchanted Forest and can only be mined in the misted mountains nearby the Dark Palace."

Tapping her chin dramatically, Snow then snapped her fingers, the noise cutting through the room sharply. "Oh, and there is also the fact that none save Regina have access to the ametites mined from the tunnels which she recommissioned and that she alone is permitted to own and wear them. When considering all of these things, I can see then why you'd have nothing to say about how often you've been ducking out of council meetings or going missing for days at a time over the past year."

Red started as if struck, mystified by the unexpected revelation that Snow had indeed noticed her extended absences. Snow barked out a bitter laugh at Red's poorly hidden reaction.

"Did you really think I haven't noticed that you've been happier lately?" she then asked, her face becoming even more pained. "Or that your smile has grown even more beautiful and that you seem to be more alive than I've ever seen you? You're in love, Red! I know what that looks like. And yes, I've been busy with my life, but you're my best friend and I pay attention!"

"Then why didn't you say anything?" Red asked, more than a little hurt that Snow had remained silent, leading Red to believe she was unnoticed and being relegated to the margins of Snow's life.

Snow shrugged, though it was more plaintive in nature than disinterested. "I figured you would tell me when I needed to know. So why didn't you?"

By now, Red was pacing, her wolf having been riled up by all of her anxiety and her current frustration, as well as the impending specter of the Dark Curse, which loomed ever closer by the minute.

"I thought you didn't care!" she replied, gesturing with her hands. "I thought you were too busy for me and I didn't want to burst the happy little bubble you were living in with Charming."

Snow scoffed at the attempted deflection, having recognized it for what it was. "That's a half-truth at best. We both know why you didn't say anything." Looking up at Snow through pleading eyes, Red willed her best friend to understand her dilemma but it seemed Snow was not in an understanding mood. "For pity's sake, Red! Are you still not going to admit it? Are you ashamed? Well, you should be! Regina? Really? Why?!"

Caught somewhere between indignation and fear, Red felt her eyes well up with tears as she stopped pacing in front of Snow. She felt like she was in an impossible situation. It felt like her heart was being torn apart at the seams from having to choose between the woman she had fallen so deeply in love with and the best friend she had fought and bled for, had spent countless nights with cuddled up together under the stars with only a low fire and the sounds of nature as company – Snow, the faithful companion that Red had laughed and cried and danced and sang with until they were both exhausted. She didn't know what to do.

When the affair with Regina started, Red had known going in that it would create strife between herself and Snow, but she hadn't realized just how much it would actually hurt when it came time to face the consequences. All she was concerned with at the time was how good she felt about herself when with Regina. For a woman whose famed moniker was the Evil Queen, Regina could be deceptively sympathetic and surprisingly comforting, which was how the whole thing started anyway. It wasn't as if Red had gone looking for the Queen or had decided that she wanted to seduce the very woman who had hunted her and Snow for so long. It just happened.

That day had been a particularly hard one for Red (it was the anniversary of her mother's death) and she had wandered thoughtlessly into Regina's territory while out for a walk. The Queen, ever on guard, had intercepted Red by herself, yet rather than taking the opportunity to capture one of Snow's closest allies, she swore she meant no harm and that she was only there to talk. After a few terse exchanges, Regina had implied she was somewhat sympathetic to Red's pain, having long known what it was like to battle an internal monster. In her indignation at being compared with such a vicious woman, Red let it slip that she was mourning having killed her own mother.

Opening that line of conversation lead to some very unexpected revelations from Regina, who had gone on to explain that she too had once felt forced to act against her mother. From that shared grief, an almost instant bond formed between the women, and very surprisingly, Red found herself agreeing to dine with Regina that night. The subsequent combination of wine, not wanting to be alone, and finally finding someone who understood her pain was one too potent for Red to resist. That night, in what would turn out to be the first of countless surrenders, she found herself succumbing to Regina's very welcomed advances.

All too soon, their dalliances became a weekly event, a casual relationship between two women who had known too much hurt in their lives. But it didn't stay casual for long – not for Red. She fell in love with Regina, hard and fast, and now after having loved the incredibly passionate and equally complicated woman, she couldn't imagine ever going back.

"I didn't plan it," she eventually responded to Snow, her face putting her distress on open display. "It just kind of happened. But I'm not ashamed, Snow...not of her or how I feel about her. I'm not!" Those last words were said with force and conviction, the depth of which knocked Snow back a step.

As she stared on, dumbfounded, Red watched the truth finally dawn over Snow's face, and in the process, her features transformed from befuddlement into astonishment. "You really do love her, don't you?"

"Yes," Red confirmed without wavering, "and I believe she loves me, too, though I know she'll never say it. She's too broken for that." Allowing a smile to form on her face, Red decided to just lay all of her cards out on the table, hoping that hearing something hopeful in regards to the woman who had been terrorizing the realms for so long might help Snow to accept this. "But she's healing Snow, I can see it. She never used to, but every now and then, she'll laugh and smile, and not those fake, over-the-top ones that she wields like swords, but real ones that touch her heart. And even though she can't now, one day she may be able to love again. I want to be that person for her when it happens. But regardless of whether or not she ever loves me, I love her."

Turning away from her best friend before a response could be formulated, Red stepped over in front of the large window in her chambers and looked out over the surrounding area from the serene blue waters of the lake to the snow capped mountains in the distance. She loved the view from the castle and would miss it greatly when it was all gone. If wherever Regina was sending them was at least half as beautiful as their home was, it couldn't be all that bad. She prayed that was the case. Still, although she would miss the Royal Castle, she would miss her best friend – her sister – the most.

"I understand if you can't accept this, Snow," Red then said. "Sometimes even I have a problem accepting it. Believe me, I've not forgotten who Regina is or what she's done – I couldn't if I wanted to." She turned to watch Snow back away from her to the bed, collapsing back down on it as she stared at Red in silent anguish, tears streaming down her full cheeks. "But the heart wants what the heart wants, right? Isn't that what you used to tell me? Well, mine wants her for good or ill, for better or for worse."

Moving over to Snow, Red knelt in front of her and took her hands. Instead of pulling away as she'd expected, Snow grasped them tightly, though her face betrayed nothing of her thoughts beyond her obvious hurt.

"I've tried staying away from her," Red continued, "but the pull just gets strong and stronger. And I've tried a thousand times to talk myself out of loving her, but it's useless. I just fall further every day. I hate it that I'm hurting you now – I hate it! - but what am I supposed to do, Snow? Please, tell me what to do!"

Taking a moment to gather herself, Snow extricated one her hands from Red's grip and ran a comforting hand through the werewolf's hair, just as she had many times before as they lay awake at night in the wilderness while on the run. Behind the pain in her eyes, Red could see something else, something that gave her hope. She tried with all of her might to hold on to it.

"I can't tell you what to do, Red," Snow eventually said, her hand still brushing soothing patterns in Red's hair and against her scalp. "This is your decision to make, not mine, so you don't have to worry about what I think. Having said that, I don't trust Regina for obvious reasons, but I do trust you."

Something shifted in Snow's face then, a tender smile crossing her lips as she gazed down with the most tender expression Red had ever seen from her. "And I love you, Red," she then said, her voice laden with emotion. "You're my best friend and you always will be. Always. I'm not going to turn my back on you because you fell in love, no matter who it was with. What kind of person would I be if I did that? Certainly not the kind that I want to be raising my child.

"So, whatever you do, do it knowing that you're still my best friend and I still love you. If you need to go to her, as I suspect you do, then go to her, Red. Love her with everything you have. Because if anyone needs love in their life, it's Regina and if anyone deserves it, it's you."

Unable to hold in her tears at the unexpected and overwhelming show of love and support, Red laid her head in Snow's lap and wept. She wept out of relief that hadn't lost her best friend after all and for the kindness and understanding that Snow had shown to her. She wept for the tragedy that happened which turned two amazing women who should have been the best of friends into the most bitter of enemies. She wept for the fact that she knew this was the last time she would see Snow before the Curse hit, and who knows if she would ever lay eyes on her best friend again after that?

But mostly Red wept because in a few short hours, she would be at the Dark Palace, hoping to see Regina one last time before her lover's ugly vendetta ripped something so beautiful apart. It was the greatest tragedy in Red's life, worse than having eaten Peter, to know that Regina was willing to throw away what they had just to make a kindhearted, loyal, and innocent woman suffer. Red's love was not enough to stay Regina's lust for revenge and Red should have known better. As it turned out, she was not enough, she never had been and she never would be.

And some hours later, as Red walked out over the bridge leading away from the Royal Palace and away from her loved ones for what might be forever, she glanced back over her shoulder to see Snow, Charming, and Granny waving their sad farewells. The sun was on its way up in the sky, casting them all in a warm, hopeful light, which contradicted the darkness which Red knew lay waiting just around the corner. Her heart clenched in her chest. She had told Snow that it was coming and as such, had discharged her duty. There was nothing more she could do besides hoping for best. It was a foolishly unsophisticated outlook, but one she had to take if she was going to make it through the next few hours.

Putting on as big a smile as she could muster, Red turned back halfway across to wave one last time before whirling around and sprinting down the bridge. As she ran, she allowed the power of the wolf wash over her and once transformed, she made short work of the span. Enraptured by the thrill of running, she dug her nails into the ground as she burst through the foliage at the border of the forest and bounded toward the Dark Palace where she knew Regina awaited. What she was going to find there, she didn't know, but that was where her heart resided, so it was where she had to be.

With dark, smoky eyes and sinfully red lips at the forefront of her mind, Red ran headlong toward her destiny.


	2. Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

**Standard Disclaimer** : The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately and I will correct them.

 **Chapter 2** – Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

It was nearing twilight at the Dark Castle as Regina stood upon her balcony, looking out over the sprawling forests of her kingdom. Placing her elbows upon the bannister, she leaned over with a gratified sigh. It was finally happening. The day had finally arrived. After waiting so long, she was going to have her vengeance on Snow White, the loose-lipped little brat and insufferably resilient bandit who had been the source of Regina's almost constant misery since rescuing her worthless hide so many years ago. That injustice was soon to be corrected once and for all.

With a triumphant grin, Regina surveyed her lands for the last time. Before long it would all be swept away by a hurricane force of magic the likes of which the Enchanted Forest had never seen: the Dark Curse. Casting the curse was her greatest achievement and the means through which she would obtain her long sought revenge. In that moment, the sweet taste of justice was so poignant as to be like honey on her tongue, for soon she would be switching places with Snow and all of her ilk, living out her happily ever after while she watched them suffer endless agonies.

There was only one notable exception to Regina's disdain toward Snow's compatriots, an individual who had picked that very moment to arrive in her chambers. Having felt rather than heard or seen said person, Regina tensed for a brief second, dreading the looming confrontation. It should not be so difficult for her to do what was necessary; after all, she wanted her revenge more than anything. But more and more lately, she had come to have reservations – small though they were – as to whether or not that was wholly true. A part of her wanted to spare this person from what was coming, though that tiny portion of what remained of her conscience was not enough to prevent her from casting the Curse. Regardless of how much she wanted to, she simply had too much invested now to go back on that decision.

Swirling around to face her guest, she was met by a familiar pair of lucent green eyes already swimming with emotion. Red's face was, all in all, a picture of grief with her trembling chin and her ruddy cheeks which were colored from the intensity of both her exertion from traveling and her palpable sorrow. Regina's hardened heart constricted in her chest at her lover's obvious distress, though she allowed no evidence of that internal conflict to reflect on her visage.

"Come to plea for mercy, my dear?" she asked, falling back on sarcasm out of instinct as she scrambled to reinforce the weakened walls around her heart. It was frightening how this simple woman had so painstakingly reduced them in strength over the course of the past year. "If so, I assure you, you'll find none...for yourself or for your little friends. They're going to get what's coming to them and there's nothing you or anyone else can do to stop it now."

"I didn't come for that," Red replied, sniffling as she angrily wiped at her teary eyes with her sleeve.

Straightening up, Regina looked at Red in confusion. "Then whatever are you here for?"

When Red stood there silently, looking very much like a lost puppy, Regina grasped for a likely reason as to why she had been sought out so close to the time of her curse hitting. All of the sudden, though, a thought occurred to her and her face twisted in an almost madly euphoric leer.

"Oh, I see," she said, lifting up the hem of her flowing silken skirts in order to approach her distraught visitor. Once in the werewolf's personal space, Regina pressed forward until their faces were mere inches apart. At the proximity, Red's eyes slid shut and she breathed a tremulous breath. Regina smirked in satisfaction. "Come for one last rendezvous have we? Well, I could certainly indulge you, dear. After all, these memories will have to last me for a very long time."

Tilting her head, Regina closed in to kiss Red's enticingly pink lips, but before she could capture them, her prey stepped back, pushing Regina away as she did so. The Queen stumbled a step before righting herself and immediately straightening her spine to glower in a furiously affronted way.

"How dare you, you insolent little girl!"

"Dammit, Regina!" Red shouted, gesturing wildly with her hands. "I'm not here for _that_. And can you drop it with 'girl' and 'dear' and just say my name! Don't you think I've earned that at least? Doesn't what we have mean anything to you?"

"Earned it?" Regina asked tauntingly, lashing out due to the impudence her normally more docile lover was showing and also at just how closely to the mark those words had hit. "I suppose I could grant you that. You have worked very hard for me, haven't you? So hard, in fact, that I'm sure your knees and back have grown rather tired from your... _dutiful_ labors."

"Oh, don't be crass," Red spat, her red rimmed eyes hardening. "I know what you're doing, you needn't hide behind insults and anger."

Regina's eyebrow quirked up at the bold claim. "Oh? And what, pray tell, am I doing?"

At the question, Red rather adorably tucked her bottom lip between her teeth and stepped toward Regina, sidling up into the Queen's personal space as though she had an open ended invitation. Her mouth forming a hard line, Regina reached up to grab the girl by the throat, but her hand was easily swatted away.

"Stop it!" Red implored with desperation in her eyes. "I don't want to spend the last moments we have fighting."

Regina sighed. "What do you want then, Red?" she asked, suddenly tired of fighting against what she really wanted. Even though it was a sign of weakness, she allowed herself to surrender to the affection she had developed for Red, hating herself as she did so.

Regina could not explain how Snow White's little werewolf pet had managed to worm her way beyond the iron walls she had erected around her heart, but she had. There was just something about Red that was so real and inviting that Regina simply couldn't help herself. That fateful day in the forest, it was not her intention to bond with the girl; she'd only meant to plant seeds of doubt in Red's mind about Snow's motivations and glean what information she could before she sent Red scurrying away. But that all went out the window when Red had unwittingly confessed the sin that had been eating away at her for years, that she'd been responsible for the death of her mother. Arrested by the bitter tears and broken expression in those crystalline eyes, Regina felt her resolve to manipulate the beguiling werewolf all but wither away. Something inside her had demanded she reach out to Red, a fellow wounded soul, and to invite her to dine together so that they could share their mutual pain over a delicious meal and an expensive bottle of wine.

That night at dinner, Regina had felt more warm and homely than she had since Daniel died, and to her great shock, the feeling did not disgust her all, particularly when someone so haunted and achingly beautiful was provoking it. Of all the men and the few women Regina had bedded since becoming Queen, none ever captivated her the way Red did. There was something undefinable about the girl that called out to Regina, beckoning her ever closer like a moth to a flame, and like the same, she had been powerless to resist the inexorable draw. Many times over the ensuing weeks, she reassured her more sensible self that it was only a fling, that she was using Red in any number of ways, when in reality something much more than an affair began that night. It was not until it was much too late that Regina realized she had been caught up in a web of her very own design and from which she was unable and unwilling to escape.

Looking at Red now, so sorrowful yet so alluring, she could not help but be swept away by the very same feelings that had drawn her to the girl in the first place as she watched a solitary tear leak from Red's eyes and then trail down the girl's porcelain cheek. With remarkably open candor, Red then returned Regina's gaze so that she could answer the posed question with a simple but profound statement.

"Just to be with you."

When Red proceeded to reach for her hand, Regina made no effort to shake off the advance. Instead, she closed her eyes, trying to memorize the sensation of those long fingers tangled up with her own shorter ones, committing to her senses the rough texture of Red's fingertips from a life of hard work. In the heat of the moment, knowing this was likely to be the last time she would have an opportunity to be so close to her lover, Regina wanted to create a permanent imprint of how she was feeling, for as she'd hinted just moments ago, it was going to have to sustain her over the boundless years of the curse.

It was almost terrifying to think that right at that very moment, Regina was as close to being in love as she had been since the day she laid Daniel to rest. While that scared her witless, it also quite astonishingly provoked a desperate need to hold on to Red despite the fact that she knew that to be out of the question. The parameters of the Dark Curse had long since been set in stone and there was no changing them now, even if she wanted to.

Shaking her head to ward off bitter tears, Regina turned away from Red. "You shouldn't be here, Red. Go back to your criminal of a friend Snow White and her pathetically charming Prince. Leave me be so that I can revel in my pending victory."

Though the words were spoken with force, they were lacking true conviction, which Red picked up on, seizing the opportunity for all she was worth.

"I don't want to be with Snow," she passionately insisted, circling around to stand before Regina. Raising her hand into the void between them, she tentatively and tenderly rested it Regina's cheek. Again, Regina did not flinch away. This time she leaned into the touch, her body welcoming the contact regardless of the protests of her mind. "No matter what happens next, I just want to be with you," Red then declared as if it was the plainest truth she had ever spoken. The tender inflection of her voice was a flood of warmth being poured over Regina's heart, melting away the ice so that the raw, ragged, and over-abused organ was exposed. "So wherever it is this curse is sending us, whatever is going to happen to us all, take me with you. But please... _please,_ don't send me away."

The heartfelt confession stunned Regina. All of those promises Red had whispered in the night and her earnest confessions of a desire to live her life by her Queen's side had been true. Regina had just been too hardened and jaded to realize it. Suddenly, she felt sick to her stomach. As if released from from the confines of a dam, her memories surged forward, inundating her with reminders of the many gestures, both overt and subtle, that Red had made and of the countless admissions of affection that Red had spoken during their year together.

But then, as if to add to the torrent of emotions Regina was feeling, Red stepped even closer, working her slim but powerful arms around Regina's waist as she touched their foreheads together. Her eyes were so full of devotion that they were practically glowing.

"I love you, Regina."

Regina very audibly gasped. Part of her was overjoyed but another much darker part of her was incensed that Red had gone and ruined their arrangement. Being that her heart was so blackened by her actions, when she took Red as a lover she had believed herself above the risk of falling in love, particularly since most of the time the only strong emotions she could muster were hatred and anger. Still, she had insisted that their dalliance was to remain without strings. Regina had thought at the time that it was mostly for Red's benefit, for she was aware that the affair was not the same for Red, a fact which was evident from the moment they first kissed.

To be honest, since becoming Queen, Regina had taken her share of lovers to satisfy her more carnal desires, the most notable of them being Graham, the Huntsman. She had been kissed many times before, but Red's kiss was something different. It was sweet in its hesitance but forcefully zealous, and through it, Regina had felt the girl's raging emotions being poured out of her to such a degree that their impact had almost made Regina's heart begin to stir again.

Much later that night, Regina had lain awake with a sleeping Red in her arms nestled as close to her side as possible. All she could think was how very glad she was that she had preemptively insisted upon a casual relationship. Having experienced the overwhelming intensity of Red's passion, she'd realized how easy it would be for her new lover to become emotionally compromised. Werewolves were pack creatures by nature, built to form lasting bonds, but on top of that, the human part of Red had a heart constructed to love selflessly. While that made her a perfect target for a woman like Regina to mold to her taste, unfortunately, she'd found herself unable to stomach the thought. Corrupting such purity was a sin even she was unwilling to commit.

The morning after, Regina had been sorely tempted to send Red away with a commandment never to return on pain of death. The problem was that in one night, she had become hopelessly addicted, unable to love Red but also incapable of sending her away either. Caught between her warring desires, Regina had determined to settle into a status quo, a routine that would help her keep her emotional distance while still enjoying the physical compatibility she shared with Red. But that had not lasted. Before long, monthly liaisons were turning into weekly ones, and soon enough nearly a year had passed and Regina was awakening to an expanse of pale flesh beneath her head and under her fingertips and realizing that she had grown uncomfortably attached. The very next day she decided to enact the curse.

While sacrificing her father had been hard (he was the only person Regina still allowed herself to fully love), she'd rationalized it away as the price she had to pay for her happiness. But now, the thought struck her, troubling her greatly: what had she gained by sacrificing Red? Nothing at all. Rather than protecting herself as she'd intended, all she had done was to cast away an opportunity to take something for herself that was separate from her vengeance, something that might flourish beyond the boundaries currently restraining it in this world into a beautiful and lasting relationship, the kind she'd dreamed of sharing with Daniel. In that moment, Regina realized with horror that she might have kept Red by her side without fear of consequence, an option she had considered implausible, though she shouldn't have.

The curse had come with constructs that were left for her to define, so it would not have been hard to provide Red with a cursed identity that as enamored with Regina as the real woman was. And in doing so, she would have had a doubly happy ending, for not only would she get to enjoy the immense pleasure of watching Snow suffer, she would also have lived a life of luxury with Red at her side. But now it was too late. She was trapped with the curse as she had constructed it – out of fear – without Red as a part of her life.

It was a terrible cost to pay for her revenge. Knowing she would have to live without Red's intrinsic warmth and big expressive eyes and gorgeous smile pained her in ways she could not have predicted. No more would she get to hear the heartwarming laugh that made her insides thaw or touch the amazingly responsive body that fitted so flawlessly against her own as if fashioned to be that way. She was never again going to enjoy the pleasure of kissing Red's lips or of being held in those deceptively strong arms while she slept. But the worst would be waking up without seeing Red's face, absent of the alluring transform it underwent each morning in going from a sleep-laden charm into a lazy smile that reflected a happiness that Regina envied, feared, and yearned for all at the same time.

As the reality of what she had done slammed into her, Regina stumbled back. In cursing her enemies, she had inadvertently cursed herself.

"I can't. I'm so sorry," she replied brokenly, having finally realized her mistake only when it was too late to fix it. "What's done is done. I can't change what's coming. I would if I could, if only for your sake, but I can't. I'm so sorry."

With a strangled cry, Red hid her face in her hands and began to weep. Silently crying herself, Regina stood there motionless, feeling almost as helpless as she had the day her mother had ripped her true love's heart out and crushed it before her eyes along with her hopes and dreams. She felt like she was being torn into a million pieces only to be left broken and defeated through a self-inflicted wound. This was _not_ how she was supposed to feel on the eve of her finest hour. She was supposed to be overjoyed, exultant in her victory over her enemies, rejoicing in the coming of her Curse, but instead, Regina felt utterly wretched.

Paralyzed by the immutable nature of her actions, she languished in indecision. On one hand, she knew there was nothing she could do to comfort Red, not really. What words could possibly assuage the grief of knowing you were to soon be parted forever from the person you love? She knew from experience that no words could temper that pain and because the blame for Red's anguish lay solely on her own shoulders, she would be the most vile of hypocrites if she were to try.

Suddenly, an explosion in the distance rocked the castle, startling both women out of their sorrow.

"What was that?" Red asked, looking fearfully out the opened door leading to the balcony.

There, in the distance, a fog of purple magic was forming, climbing higher and higher into the sky until it blotted out the moon. Slowly, it crawled toward them, a tide of unstoppable destruction that would rip the denizens of the Enchanted Forest away from their homes forever.

"It's the curse," Regina answered, her voice muted in resignation. So this was it, her last moments with this remarkable woman who had changed her life for the better without her even having known it. Turning back to Red with a desperate look on her face, what was left of Regina's pride melted away. She grasped Red's face in her hands, her thumb trailing softly over lips she had kissed countless times.

"Red, I have tell you something before it's too late," she began, her voice strong despite the butterflies in her stomach and the subtle trembling of her legs. As she talked, she took every opportunity she had to touch her young lover, running her hands through that glorious mane of thick brown curls, trailing her fingertips down a pale cheek, tracing the outline of a strong jaw, and brushing her index finger down the slope of a perfect nose. "For all of those times I pushed you away, that I kept you at arm's length...I want to say that I'm sorry. I'm _so_ sorry. If I could, I would take it all back. I would turn back time and let myself feel all that of the love that you gave me because you gave me so much. _So_ much more than I deserve.

"I want you to know that I would do things differently, and I beg you to remember that should the curse ever break. You'll be angry with me and you'll have every right to be, but remember what I'm saying right now before you act. Because as much as I hate Snow White for what she's done to me, and as much as it is possible for me to do so, I _love_ you. I do. I know that it's not in the way that you want, and I know that it's my fault for not realizing until now...when it's too late and I'm about to lose you. But should your memories ever return to you, please remember that at the very least you weren't the only one to have said it."

Nodding, tears slid in streams down Red's face. Regina could tell by the conflict in her eyes that she was having to make an effort to not dissolve into another fit of weeping. For the first time in her life, Regina was at a true point of conflict herself. While she was exceedingly proud of achieving her revenge, she hated herself for what she had done to Red, an innocent woman who, more than anyone else she had ever known, deserved to be happy.

"I will," Red eventually managed to say as the tide of the curse began to sweep past the edges of the forest surrounding the Dark Palace. It was almost time. "I love you, Regina. Don't forget that. Don't forget me."

"Oh, my sweet girl," Regina whispered around a tightened throat. "I could never forget you. You will live in my heart forever."

The wind began to howl as the curse swept up the hill to the palace and the doors of Regina's chambers began to shake, the curtains fluttering and flapping with the torrent. When it slammed into them both, Regina would have fallen were it not for Red's strong arms catching her. But even though Red's reflexes were sharp and her strength kept them steady, her eyes were wide with fright.

"Regina..."

"Shh," Regina cooed, drawing Red back into her embrace. "Just kiss me my darling and it will all be over soon."

Without having to be told twice, Red desperately surged forward, cupping Regina's face in one hand and gripping the back of her neck with the other. Their lips met hotly, clashing together in a desperate but fruitless bid to hang on to one another. And as the wind began to swirl around them, they both leaned into the kiss, deepening it and pouring their hearts out to one another in one last moment of physical connection.

Thrusting her tongue past the threshold of Red's lips, Regina swallowed up the moan erupted from Red's throat and gripped tightly at the material of Red's simple woolen vest, so peasant in comparison to her own lavish gown. Such things no longer mattered. In mere moments the social constructs that had governed life in the Enchanted Forest for millennia would be all but obliterated. But even were they to persist, Regina had come to accept a bitter truth that in such things, her younger self was perhaps more wise than she realized.

When Regina was a younger girl, she had loathed the trappings of her station and longed for the freedom of choice that it prevented her from having access to. The privilege she should have enjoyed was slowly becoming a gilded cage, a life-size prison from which her only time of escape was idling among the workers her family employed.

On the rare days she had time to herself, she would often observe the commoners she saw nearly everyday of her life but for the most part did not know. She loved to study their interactions, closely watching how their families worked together to give a point of reference to contrast with her own. At first, all she could think of them was how miserable an existence it must be to so spend oneself so thoroughly for relative scraps. The low pay, absurd hours, and harsh conditions under which peasants often labored could not be reconciled by a young mind that still believed in fairness. While her initial studies elicited only pity for her father's employees, that all began to change one day when she was 13 years old.

"Look at them, poor wretches," Regina vividly remembered her mother saying on said occasion when Cora was escorting her to the stables for her weekly lesson. In the process, they passed by a large hay field where the workers were bailing under a scorching hot sun. They had appeared to Regina's young and prim self to be disgustingly bedraggled with their shirts drenched and their foreheads dripping with sweat, and with taut and weathered faces formed by long enduring the conditions of such exhausting work. When her mother stopped their progress for a moment to watch the men work, the always opportunistic woman had taken the time to use what Regina was witnessing as an object lesson.

"This is why you must appreciate the gift you've been given, Regina," Cora had said as she looked on with open disdain. Her mother had a way of always knowing what Regina was doing, feeling, or thinking, so Regina was fairly certain she'd noticed the sudden interest in the common laborers her daughter had developed. The object lesson had been Cora's calculated response. "I came from such stock," her mother continued, "and there is nothing to be admired about such a miserable existence as theirs, nor is there anything of value to be learned from it. Tell me: is a lion concerned with the welfare of an ant?"

"No, Mother," Regina had replied, eyes downcast.

"No, indeed. You, my dear, are of a better breed than the peasantry. Never forget that. However much you hate the social functions, codes of conduct, and repressive roles of the gentry, you'll never know the toils of the field or the cloistered suffocation of a mill. You'll never know hunger or want for shelter or the basic necessities of life. So be thankful that I've secured a better life for you, because it is for _you_ that I have done all that I have done. I'll not see those sacrifices squandered. Do you understand, Regina?"

"Yes, Mother," Regina had answered, suitably cowed by her mother's austerity. After that, they'd continued on toward the stables.

But all the rest of that day, Regina stewed on her mother's words. At first, they'd been very convincing to a young girl who was accustomed to obey out of both fear and habit. Regina did not question her mother very often and for good reason; Cora was not a woman to trifled with even by her own daughter. Yet, Regina had been so moved by the plight of the workers that she hadn't cared about potential consequences. Knowing the danger (and finding she quite liked it), she decided that day to take a more active interest in the welfare of the estate's employees. Thus began her years long observation of peasant life.

What teenage Regina had eventually discovered was that to her great surprise, even though the lives of most peasants seemed unbearably hard, those simple people possessed a dignity foreign to those of aristocratic breeding. Noble blood, she'd realized, could not teach one how to love truly or how to have compassion on others less fortunate than oneself; it could not teach a person how to be painfully kind or to appreciate even the slightest, most seemingly worthless gift or token of appreciation; it could not instill a person with recognition of the innate value that can be found in even the most pathetic of human lives. This conclusion flew in the face of Cora's oft-stated ridicule of the peasantry, in which she delighted in deriding their uncouth speech, prematurely aged skin, unpleasant odor, and general imbecility.

While some of those things were undeniably true, they were things beyond the control of people who had no means with which to improve themselves or their stations. Regina hadn't been able to find fault with that even on her most haughty days. In seeing what her mother was unable or unwilling to, she had learned that those things which could not be controlled should inspire a person to embrace what they _could_ , which the peasants around her family estate often did to extremes. This all-encompassing immersion resulted in a life lived to excess in ways her sheltered self couldn't comprehend. Some of those ways she'd considered unseemly, such as rampant drunkenness and promiscuity and a penchant for colorful language that made her ears tingle and her cheeks burn whenever she heard it. But in other more important ways, she'd found she quite envied the ability they possessed to fully experience the human condition.

Most of the peasants she came to know personally during her self-imposed task (and very secretly for fear of her mother punishing her, though never without great satisfaction) were able to appreciate life more fully than she believed possible for a person of high birth. Getting to know some of her father's workers taught her why that was. In noble social circles, everything was restrained and so insufferably pretentious that it had always revolted Regina, but it was something ingrained in highborn individuals almost from the cradle. It was not so with commoners, whose laughter was more joyous and their sadness consuming in equal measure, and whose hatred burned like the rising sun but who also loved with unrestrained passion. To Regina's dismay, she'd realized that this ability to surrender to emotion, to feel for all it was worth, to wring all the living out of life that one could, was painfully absent in all noble circles, as it was in both her parents lives and in her own.

As such, Regina came to inevitable conclusion that status was and should be irrelevant to her. Life, that younger more impressionable and open version of herself had learned, could not be valued and love could not be defined. Such things were larger and greater than petty human constructs, and to try to label them, to stuff them into a neat little box was the epitome of prideful hubris which so defined high society. Nature had given people such gifts in the hopes that they would be cherished, that by experiencing such gifts human beings would learn that life was far too fleeting and precious to squander. But too many people callously relinquished this extraordinary cosmic privilege in the name of power, or wealth, or of social advancement. In the light of this illumination, noble society was, she decided, the greatest farce in the history of the universe, and Regina wanted no part in it.

It was this revelatory experience that opened her up to the possibility of more. Had she not spent such time with common folk and learned what it really meant to be alive from them, her relationship with Daniel would not have been possible. But because young and naive Regina was willing to step outside of her box and cast aside her predefined position, she was granted the priceless gift of Daniel's love, one that defined her as a person more than any other for good and for ill.

Sadly, when that love was ripped away from her, the open and fertile plains of that girl's heart were transformed into a barren and accursed valley, crushed from all angles by the suffocating, mountainous behemoths named Cora, Rumplestiltskin, Leopold, and Snow White. To her current distress, Regina could only acknowledge shamefully that she had become the woman her mother always planned for her to be, having buried what she learned all of those years ago about the worth of a human life and about what it meant to truly be alive.

It took a boldly sassy, endearingly sweet, disarmingly humble, and astoundingly beautiful girl to bring her slowly but surely back to a measure of that girl she used to be. Red. A simple name for a simple person. If only Regina had dismissed Red based on that outward simplicity as she normally would have, she might have been spared the pain she was soon to endure, but Red had gripped her cold and blackened heart to the point she could not turn away. Unbeknownst to Regina, her heart had begun to stir whilst fascination turned into obsession which turned into something that she had long since forgotten she was capable of feeling. Letting Red into her life was about to bring her untold suffering but she knew that however much misery awaited her within the confines of the curse, the memories they had made together would never fade. As such, she couldn't bring herself to regret even a moment. Life was cruel in its irony.

There was a time in Regina's life that she thought herself dead inside save for her hatred, but oh how wrong she had been. Tentative touches from calloused fingers and reverent kisses from perfectly pink lips had brought her back to life one day at a time. Regina's heart was beating and she could feel the energy of living thrumming in her veins once more. There would be no going back for her now, at least not to the woman she had transformed into under Rumple's purposeful hand. Regina remembered what she had learned so long ago and she would not be quick to forget it again.

But with that remembrance came the pain of knowing that only at the end did she finally realize how worthless her possessions were and how empty her power felt when there was no one to share them with. She had once lived in a cold and lifeless castle, but when Red was there, it felt more like a home than any she'd ever had. And there was a time in her life when she'd warmed her bed thoughtlessly with many lovers, but now it was a place of refuge, having been forever consecrated by a peasant girl's unconditional love. Regina was glad that bed would not make the trip with her, for she could no longer stomach the thought of any other sharing it with her save Red and she could no longer sleep in it alone.

More than ever before, Regina felt like a miserable fool. She'd fallen headlong into her mother's trap, accepting without a fight the life of pointless luxury that Cora desired for her. She became true royalty, the very thing she hated most, and loathed herself for it. In the face of losing Red forever, how could it matter anymore that she was a bred monarch whose wealth was as vast as the ocean and that Red was a poor woman who didn't even know who her father was? It couldn't. It didn't. Nor did it matter any longer that Red was the best friend of Regina's sworn enemy.

All of those things which had seemed to define her life for so very long had been stripped away, reducing her to a state of pure feeling and pure emotion. At last, she knew what it felt like to live as one of those simple workers back on her father's estate, and it was a consuming gravity that pulled her under until she was fully immersed. Being able to experience so keenly made Regina feel as if she could happily drown in the sensations produced by Red's lithe body pressed fully against her own and wrapped up tightly in her arms, by the taste of those sinfully sweet and supple lips, and by the warm and heady aroma of her scent. This was what was important in life. This feeling. This moment. This woman.

And so she tuned out the noise of the curse as it battered against the ramparts and brickwork of her palace, and ignored the creeping feeling of magic slithering and clawing its way up her body from her toes to her head. All Regina could feel now was the softness of Red's lips on her own, flavored by the bittersweet taste of wild strawberries. With all her might, she committed those things to memory, and as she succumbed at last to the enormous weight of the moment, a cloud of irresistibly powerful magic overtook them and everything went black.


	3. Green Means Go

**Standard Disclaimer** : The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately and I will correct them.

 **Chapter 3** – Green Means Go

 **28 years later**

Pushing through the doors of Granny's Diner, Regina strode in with a purpose behind her steps. As she passed the threshold of the door, she swept her eyes about the busy restaurant to seek out a certain waitress with whom she had business. This was an impromptu trip born of necessity. If it were up to Regina, she would have chosen to let things be, but since Emma Swan arrived in Storybrooke, everything was in flux, the chess pieces were on the move once more, and Regina's moves were limited.

After she had been witness to a couple of worrying exchanges between Ruby and her newest bosom buddy, the very same Emma Swan whose purpose in life was to be a thorn in Regina's side, she had decided that enough was enough. Her hand had been forced. It was finally time to put an end to her self-imposed misery.

In searching for Ruby, Regina's eyes landed on the table the bothersome blonde interloper frequented and to her dismay, she found that Emma was not alone. Faltering slightly, Regina had to catch herself in order to prevent an audible gasp from escaping her lips. There, sitting prettily across from the newly elected Sheriff was Ruby Lucas, _her_ Red, laughing and smiling more happily than at any time since the curse took effect. To any other bystanders, the friendly familiarity that appeared to exist between the two women seemed innocent on the surface, but Regina was no ordinary observer. Having been so intimately acquainted with Red, she was familiar with the differences in the girl when her flirting was harmless and when it was not. And although Ruby was not quite Red, Regina had been on the receiving end of her advances enough times that she felt confident in her analysis of the situation, which was worrisome to say the least. The flirtatious smile that Ruby was currently wearing was not isolated but rather accompanied by a subtle worrying of her plump bottom lip and a glint in her eyes which indicated a vested interest in the woman she was sitting across from. Ruby seriously considered Emma to be a potential partner.

Stricken in place and with disbelieving, crestfallen eyes, Regina was powerless to move as the two women continued to converse, completely wrapped up in one another so that their bodies were subconsciously gravitating toward one another. Only the barrier of the table seemed to be preventing them from consummating their burgeoning attraction.

Growing distressed, Regina watched Ruby lean over the table and grin, and it wasn't just a normal grin, but the radiant one which made her bottom lip turn ever-so-slightly askew in a way that Regina loved. The luminescence of that smile told her how close to Ruby's heart Emma had penetrated. And then Ruby extended her hand out to touch Emma's and said something which made both women laugh. As if caught in the web Ruby was spinning, Emma leaned in as well and then turned her hand up to capture Ruby's with an effervescent grin of her own in place. The exchange officially disturbed Regina to the point of sickness.

Before coming to the diner, she'd been uncertain as to whether or not she had a legitimate cause for alarm seeing that it was widely acknowledged that Ruby Lucas was a notorious vixen who had quite the reputation in the love department (though Regina was never brave enough to find out whether these rumors were true; among other things, she felt as if it was invading Red's privacy, which the woman was owed for how she had given to Regina and how little she had received in return). As such, Regina somewhat expected to see casual flirtation from her, and though it was never pleasant to witness, over the years she had grown tolerant of that kind of thing because she could write it off as Ruby being Ruby. For whatever reason, it was just part of her cursed personality. But from the alluring smiles Ruby was currently wielding at Emma to the frequent physical contact she seemed to be seeking out, nothing was casual in this case. To make matters worse, the advances obviously not unwelcome. By the way the supposed Savior was eagerly reciprocating, it seemed as if her attraction to Ruby was as potent as Ruby's was to her.

Regina didn't have to be an expert at calculus for that math to add up. If things were allowed to progress naturally, there would be no stopping the two from falling into bed with one another, or even worse, from falling in love. Neither were scenarios that Regina was willing to endure, even at the potential cost that intervening might incur. For 28 years, she had held her peace and restrained her desires where Red was concerned, and rather admirably she might add, although she had wanted nothing more than to barge into the diner that first day of the curse and strike up a relationship with Red's cursed self. For a multitude of reasons, she had kept her distance, but that didn't mean it was easy.

Over the years, Regina had lost count of how many times she'd talked herself into approaching Ruby, wanting more than anything to take whatever form of the woman she loved she could get, only to chicken out in the end. With each failure she would have to coolly explain away the off-schedule visit and the rude staring to a very confused waitress. It was as if there was something physically stopping her from uttering the words she wanted – perhaps, she rationalized, a subconscious desire to protect the curse.

Upon landing in Storybrooke, it hadn't taken longer than an hour for the heady feelings of her parting from Red to be overshadowed by the joy that filled her blackened heart at seeing Snow so miserable. In that moment, she'd realized that her earlier supposition that she could have her cake and eat it too was false. Her desire to keep Red with her was, indeed, implausible, and she had just been influenced by the unexpected awareness that she had developed real feelings for Red. Those same real feelings were, it turned out, a legitimate threat to the curse, and in light of that, Regina immediately quashed any thoughts she harbored of seeking Red out in this new world. She had sacrificed far too much to cast the curse for it to end so soon. That rationalization, while convoluted, lent her the strength required to walk away from her lover for good, relegating what they'd shared to memory, just as she had originally planned to do.

However, that ability to justify her decision didn't help the situation of being in such close proximity to Red while unable and/or unwilling to have her. Sometimes it was maddening to be close enough to smell the perfume she preferred as Ruby, close enough that if she so desired, she could reach out and touch her face or kiss her lips as she leaned over to take Regina's order. But like the coward she was, she was too afraid to act on those impulses, which left for some lonely, miserable nights.

With no other alternative to sate her sexual appetites, she eventually resorted to Graham, falling into old habits for the sake of convenience because he was both familiar and pliable. Still, rather than forcing his compliance, Regina chose to seduce him the old fashioned way this time, for to her great displeasure, she found that the thought of using his heart to control him had become unpalatable. Having felt what it was like to be loved and desired for her own inherent value, Regina could no longer stomach taking advantage of the kindhearted hunstman in the way she once had. The affair with Graham did not last very long, however. After only a couple of months of empty sex, Regina ended things. Graham was not enough to satisfy her for one all-important reason: he wasn't Red.

Even another world away and when she was no longer herself, Red was still exerting her influence over Regina, having changed the formerly hateful and vindictive woman on such a fundamental level that it took years for her to come to grips with who she had become. In the wake of Red's inherent goodness, those unsavory behaviors that once might have seemed appealing to Regina began to lack their former luster or to seem distasteful to such a degree that she was growing unable to properly appreciate the ultimate victory she had so dearly won. It was not at all how things were supposed to be.

Watching her enemies wallow in misery was not as satisfying as Regina had imagined it to be when she was wallowing in her own, having freely chosen to severe herself from Red. It was all so tragically ironic. Instead of being exultant in triumph, she was now stuck in the curse and had been ripped away from the person she loved just like all the other pitiable saps in Storybrooke, and the more time passed, the more Regina felt as if she were shackled in a prison of her own construction. And then, as if to add insult to injury, Red's cursed personality only added to Regina's torment.

Being the Mayor of a town as small and insular as Storybrooke meant that she was privy to information that others were not. Unfortunately, this meant that she was well aware of the rumors going around town regarding Ruby. The drunken slut of Storybrooke, that's what they called her in many of them. Stories that were various colors of disgusting circulated back to Regina, such as those of Ruby's penchant for drinking herself into a stupor once a month and taking the first person home with her that caught her eye. Another awful one described the girl's impressive flexibility in bed in startling detail, while others spoke of sordid midnight rendezvous with complete strangers in the alleyway behind The Rabbit Hole.

Where those rumors were concerned, Regina had done the only thing she felt she could, which was to ignore them wholesale. But looking back now, if those stories had any veracity to them – and with 28 years of such behavior to account for – there was no telling just how many sexcapades and one night stands Ruby had indulged herself in while cursed. Regina hoped that they were just the idle imaginings of those unworthy of breathing the same air as Red, because otherwise, she couldn't have coped.

On most days, she was able to cling to what little hope remained in her heart in order to dismiss those rumors as absurd. The nature of the Curse also helped to ease her mind, for it was designed to take away happy endings, and while it did just that and also was responsible for exaggerating the unsavory aspects of a persons character, it did not fundamentally alter a person. Heroes that became villains under the curse did so because they were already selfish, or prejudicial, or violent, or misogynistic. The only reason those attributes were not seen when in full control of themselves was that they merely hid their proclivities well or admirably overcame them while free to choose for themselves. So while Red might have been many things such as temperamental, hot-headed, opinionated, and stubborn, Regina couldn't bring herself to believe she had it in her to be so promiscuous.

For the most part though, Regina's dismissal of the rumors was for a much more selfish reason: she simply couldn't stomach the thought of Red giving herself away to any other person who was not her. It made Regina physically ill to think of other men or women touching what belonged to her in such an intimate way, and had she actually given credence to the rumors, she would have either snapped long ago and went on a rampage or she would have completely lost her resolve to stay away from Red.

And so, wanting desperately to preserve her own sanity, she wrote off the rumors as absurd and refused to even consider them. Like an ostrich, she chose to bury her head in the sand rather than seek the truth, hoping for the best but fearing the worst. It was an untenable position that wreaked havoc on her already volatile temper, but at least it allowed her to sleep at night.

There were those occasional nights, however, in which she was kept up, wide awake and staring at the ceiling, unable to rest due to the whirling torment of her mind. On those nights, the vulgar nature of the rumors ate away at her until she felt like one giant exposed nerve. It was hard to sleep at night wondering whether or not the precious, innocent young woman she had never stopped loving was out somewhere having drunken sex with a random stranger. Regina's restlessness on those nights was made even worse by the fact that she was literally powerless to stop it, since both the curse and her own pride had handcuffed her from acting on her feelings for Red. It was, she supposed, a fitting punishment for what she had done.

Somehow, though, Regina managed to slog through the 28 years of relentless torture that defined her self-imposed exile from Red. Mostly, the only thing that enabled her to endure was Henry. When she adopted him, he became a source of unobstructed light in her life, one that revitalized her and refocused her and allowed her to move past the general loneliness she lived in without Red to warm her bed and her heart. It was Henry that gave Regina a new purpose.

Throwing herself wholly into becoming a mother, she found an outlet with which to distract herself from pining over what she couldn't have, and for nearly 10 years, it worked. Her life as Henry's mom was as full as it could possibly be minus that glaring and ever-present Red-shaped hole in it. But then Henry learned he was adopted and everything changed. It all happened so quickly, almost as if overnight he withdrew his affection from the mother who had raised him. Soon enough he ran away from home and brought Emma back to town with him.

In dealing with the fallout of Emma's arrival, Regina was left bereft of her only anchor and was floating helplessly out to sea. She was adrift with no one to rescue her. Not only was she having to endure the loss of her son to Emma on a day-by-day basis but she was losing Red to the insufferable woman as well. Feeling as if her control were being ripped away from her and as if all of those things were conspiring together to against her, Regina was left feeling like she was about to drown under the tsunami sized tides of her anger and jealousy, for while losing Red to the curse and losing Henry to the circumstances of his birth had broken her heart, the thought of losing them both at the same time to the same woman was threatening to send her spiraling into an abyss of darkness from which she might never escape.

Cursing the prophesied Savior, Regina quickly tamped down on her rampaging emotions. Ever since the woman had arrived, the curse was starting to come unraveled. Her power over the town seemed to be perpetually teetering on the precipice of failure, she was losing influence over people, and her leverage was disappearing with every righteous act the 'Savior' performed. Pretty soon, if things did not change, she would not have an office left to occupy or perhaps even a head on her shoulders. And while that was bad, what was happening with Henry and Ruby only added coals to the fire. Storybrooke was supposed to be Regina's happy ending, but that storybook ending was coming apart at the seams, fraying one thread at a time until only a ragged and useless cord of fibers remained, all because of Emma Swan. Regina had never hated anyone as much as she hated Snow White but Emma was certainly giving her mother a run for her money.

Still, Regina was not so consumed by her vengeance that she didn't recognize that all of this was her own fault, especially what was currently happening with Red. That particular wound had been completely avoidable. Before casting the curse, Regina had thought herself generous by providing her lover with closeness to her grandmother and freedom to express herself as she pleased. She hadn't realized that Red was willing to forsake everything because she loved Regina. Foolishly, Regina had believed her mother when she was told that no one could ever love her in that way.

It was only Red's visit on the night before the curse hit that made her aware that her mother's assertions were as false as her own conceptions as to what was really going on between herself and her werewolf lover. Red had really and truly loved her but Regina squandered that love on revenge. Because of that, even though she'd spent the past 28 thoroughly enjoying the misery her curse was inflicting upon her enemies on a day-to-day basis, she still went home alone most nights and curled up with her cold, comfortless pillow, wishing for all the world that Red was there beside her. For the most part, she was able to shake off such emotions with the light of dawn, dismissing her lapses as the workings of a weak mind. But on those rare occasions her heart made itself heard, Regina regretted ever letting go of Red.

She hadn't been lying to Red in those last moments together, for had she possessed the power, she would have changed things. Sadly, that power had been beyond her, Rumplestiltskin having seen to that. She had only ever been the vehicle through which he enacted the Curse of his making. She had been so blinded by her hatred of Snow that she never questioned why he offered her such a tantalzing method of exacting her vengeance. Now, she could clearly see that he had needed her. Without Belle, Rumple had nothing to sacrifice to cast the curse, but Regina did. He had probably thought she would kill Red, but he hadn't reckoned on her willpower to restrain her heart from growing so attached to Red that the girl took the place of Regina's father in her heart.

But no matter how implicit Rumple was in manipulating Regina, she still carried most of the blame. Casting the curse was her mistake, not his, and the ever-present pain she lived in for so long afterward was the just price she had to pay for it. Still, if she wanted the curse to continue (which to her great shame, she did), she was going to have to continue to endure it to some degree.

But her willingness to suffer for the sake of her so-called happy ending had reached the outer edge of its limits. She'd lived with the loneliness, the despair, and the tawdry rumors without acting, but there was no way in hell she was about to allow Emma Swan – the person who was prophesied to break the curse and who was stealing Regina's son away – to have what belonged to her. In order to make that happen, she was going to have to make yet another sacrifice. She just hoped that it didn't wind up blowing up in her face like the last one did.

Thundering over to the table, Regina slammed her hands into the tabletop, causing the silverware to clatter on the plates resting there. Both Ruby and Emma jumped in shock, looking up with startled eyes. She smirked smugly.

"I hope I'm not interrupting."

"What the hell, Regina?" Emma shouted angrily, moving out of her seat to step in front of Regina while Ruby remained seated with her hands clasped together between bare thighs. Her green eyes watched the showdown like a deer caught in headlights. "What's your problem? Did something crawl up your ass and die or something?"

"Eloquent as always," was Regina's remark, her lips curled up in disgust at Emma's crass language. "As a matter of fact, I'm here about Henry."

That put Emma even more on the offensive. She leaned threateningly into Regina's personal space, completely unafraid. Emma's fearlessness was perhaps the only thing Regina admired about the woman.

"What about him?" the Savior asked, her mouth set into a hard line. "Here to chastise me for spending time with him at his castle? Or maybe for letting him eat a damn cheeseburger?"

Regina sighed and clenched her eyes shut, counting to ten in her head. "Nothing of the sort," she eventually replied after opening her eyes. "Actually, I'm here to extend an olive branch, as it were." At Emma's disbelieving look, Regina motioned apologetically with her hand. "Look, I know I've been aggressive with you where my son is concerned..."

"Ya don't say, lady," was Emma's cutting interjection.

Regina ignored the dig. "But you've got to understand, he's all I've had for the past 10 years. I can be a very controlling person. It's something I'm working on."

Again, Emma cut in, scoffing. "You have a real talent for understatement, Regina. A real talent."

"That may be so," Regina said, the words strained through her teeth due to her aggravation, "but perhaps if you'd listen, I could get to the point."

Emma gestured at Regina to continue, not bothering to look the least bit repentant. Regina had just opened up her mouth to speak when Ruby cut in.

"Okay," she drawled, her big eyes looking anxiously between the two powerful women who were very publicly facing off with each other. "That's my queue to get back to work. I'll leave you guys to talk privately."

Ruby then began to slide out of the booth and was starting to stand up when her words finally registered to Regina.

"Sit your ass back down, Miss Lucas," she commanded, her annoyance with Emma having colored her words to Ruby. She winced a bit at her tone but was nonetheless satisfied by the results: Ruby slid back into her seat like a dog with its tail between its legs (pun intended), wearing a wounded expression in much the same vein.

"Hey, don't talk to her that way," Emma objected, her brows furled in offense.

Regina held her hands up and looked down apologetically at Ruby. "I'm sorry. That was uncalled for, so I apologize." Ruby nodded her acceptance but did not reply. "I only meant to keep you from leaving. I have something to ask you, so I would very much like for you to stay, Miss Lucas., that is if you are willing to accommodate me despite my boorishness."

Looking caught between fear and intrigue, Ruby nodded a second time, causing the chain of her necklace to rattle. Glancing down, Regina caught sight of the ametite pendant she'd gifted to Red resting alluringly in her cleavage. Her breath caught at what its presence implied.

Perhaps if she'd believed in fate, she might be tempted to think it was trying to send her a signal, but Regina did not subscribe to such things. People made their own decisions and carved their own paths. Destiny was a bunch of hocus pocus meant to excuse the actions or the lack thereof of the weak minded. Fate, she firmly believed, was whatever a person made of it. Still, she couldn't deny how startling it was to see Ruby wearing the necklace. In the 28 years that the Curse had persisted, Regina could not recall ever having witnessed her wear it before. So however much she did not believe, maybe, just maybe, there was something to that fate thing after all...

Not more than a moment later, Emma cleared her throat loudly, jolting Regina back to reality. Looking back down at Ruby, she saw the waitress biting her bottom lip invitingly, having clearly noticed Regina's staring and seeming to have enjoyed the attention tremendously. Regina filed that information away, along with her desire to kiss those tantalizingly full lips she'd dreamt of for so long. It had been _far_ too long since she had tasted Red on her tongue and she aching for a sample.

"I can do that," Ruby then answered, smiling hesitantly as she absentmindedly grasped the pendant and rolled it between her fingers. "I have a few minutes left on my break." She glanced up at Emma. "That okay with you, Em?"

"Sure," Emma sighed, hard eyes still fixed on Regina.

Regina gritted her teeth. The way Ruby was looking up at Emma as if needing the woman's permission to speak with her had her nearly ready to claw Emma's eyes out. Red was an alpha, she was not supposed behaved like some common lapdog begging for her mistress's attention. Even back in the Enchanted Forest when Red would willingly submit herself to Regina, she always maintained the part of herself that was dangerous, dominant, and powerful. Though different in nature, Red was the only woman who equaled Regina in strength of will and in raw power, so to see her – as Ruby – degrade herself in such a way was repulsive. If this was part of the curse, then perhaps Regina had underestimated its efficacy, and if that was true, perhaps all of those rumors she'd so easily dismissed were not rumors after all.

Shaking her head weakly, she banished such troubling thoughts to the back of her mind and looked to her cursed paramour once more. She then offered a smile that she hoped would put Ruby at ease. "Thank you, Miss Lucas." The smile Ruby gave her back told Regina that it worked, which made her feel warm all over.

"So," Emma cut in again, drawing Regina's attention away from Ruby, "what is this so-called olive branch you were referring to."

"Well, I have to begin by admitting something that I'd rather not," she began, not bothering to hide how hard this was for her. The sentence did its job in piquing Emma's interest, though. "I have come to realize that despite my best efforts, Henry loves you, and while that hurts me, I am willing to consider the possibility that there may be room in his life for more than just me."

"How magnanimous," Emma sarcastically commented, earning her an eye roll.

"Stop being childish, Miss Swan, and take what I'm offering," Regina tersely responded.

"Which is?"

Regina sighed again, frustrated beyond her limit for the day. She needed to just get on with this conversation so that she could be rid of Emma's annoying presence and focus on what she had really come here for.

"An offer," Regina explained, her tone as patient as she could manage at the moment.

"What kind of an offer?"

"My God, do you ever just stop and listen?" Regina exploded, causing Emma to move back a step, her eyes like saucers. "I'm trying to tell you!"

"Okay, okay," Emma soothed, her hands out in front of her in a mollifying gesture. "I get it. Sorry. Go ahead, I'm listening."

Taking a deep breath, Regina pinched her nose for a second and then returned her focus to Emma, a fake smile firmly in place. "I would not object to you spending a bit more structured time with my son, so long as it is with the understanding that it will be according to my stipulations."

Despite the unexpected offer, Emma remained dubious. "Depends on the stipulations," she said. "Look, I get that he's your son, Regina – legally that is. I didn't come here to upset that particular apple cart." Regina held back a snort at the unwittingly appropriate pun. "I just wanted to know that he was safe and loved. Up 'til now, you've gone out of your way to make me question whether that's true or not on both accounts. So, would I like to spend time with him? Absolutely. But I'm not about to dismiss what you've done to earn my suspicion."

"Thus my offer," said Regina, cocking her head to the side. She schooled her features to hide her reaction at the accusatory tone. "My only stipulation is that you recognize your place in his life. _I_ am his mother. I love him and I would do anything to protect him. I'm not perfect and I never will be, so sometimes I get overzealous in my attempts, but I have only ever wanted what was best for Henry. If we can agree on that, then I think it might be possible for us to come to some sort of an arrangement."

Emma looked genuinely surprised by Regina's statement, which was not at all unexpected. The Savior had been right before that Regina had done little to garner her trust. There was just something about Emma that had rubbed her the wrong way from the moment she met the woman, standing on her porch in her awfully garish red leather jacket with her bouncing blonde Disney curls, pouty lips, and ridiculously well-sculpted cheeks. Having such a negative initial reaction lead Regina to instantly distrust Emma, not that she wouldn't have anyway seeing as she was Henry's biological mother and had the power to make Regina's life miserable. She supposed that could account for at least some of her animosity toward Emma but not all of it. No, some of it was just Regina being Regina: always and forever her own worst enemy.

Looking back, she could see now that Emma's arrival had started her spiraling back to that woman she used to be before she met Red, a woman who was unhinged and out of control. Regina didn't want to be that person anymore. She wanted to be a better person. She was not so naive as to believe she could get back to the girl who had fallen in love with a stable boy and rescued a princess in distress, but she at least somewhat believed that happiness was possible for her. Red had proven that it was possible back in the Enchanted Forest and Henry further reinforced it in this much improved world they were living in. It made Regina feel like the worlds slowest learner. After 28 years of creeping revelation, she had finally accepted that her happy ending was much simpler than she'd imagined, for she desired only two things in her life now: to be Henry's mother and to love Red. Everything else paled in comparison to those objectives, her revenge included.

So, if she had to set aside her pride to get there, she was willing to do so as long as Emma was willing to do the same. And besides that, a battle between them would only leave Henry caught helplessly in the middle, which was the last thing Regina wanted for her son. She didn't want to turn into her own mother, rather she wanted to be the kind of mother she had always wanted, one who put her child before her own selfish desires. This was a first step in that direction and didn't they say that the first step is always the hardest? Well, Regina certainly hoped it was so, because this was painfully difficult.

"Are you being serious?" Emma eventually asked, half-disbelieving but half-hopeful.

Glancing out of the corner of her eye, Regina noticed Ruby staring up at her in open awe, as if she were seeing Regina in an entirely different light. It was the first time Ruby had looked at her in that way since she was Red and they were together in the Enchanted Forest. Though Regina restrained the reaction, she felt like preening under such admiration from the woman she still loved.

"I am," Regina answered Emma, giving a firm nod. "And as a gesture of good faith, I would not be opposed to Henry spending the day with you this Saturday, if that is convenient for you."

Emma spluttered in her tentative excitement. "Y-Yeah...th-that's more than convenient. I would love to spend some time with him. What time can I pick him up?"

Regina smiled, feeling strange inside. She had done something nice for someone who she had considered an enemy, exposing herself in the worst of ways in the process. Yet somehow she felt good about herself, like she had done the right thing, which was so confusingly pleasant that she didn't know what to make of it.

"I want to at least have breakfast with him," she replied. "So you may pick him up any time you wish after 10 am. Just have him back home by 11."

Emma frowned now, her growing smile disappearing in an instant. "Only an hour?"

Regina looked confused until she replayed her words in her mind. "No," she corrected, "in the evening."

Now, Emma look flabbergasted. Regina could see suspicion set back in as her green eyes narrowed.

"Wait, I get him all day? Where is this coming from? A day ago, you couldn't wait to destroy my reputation and drive me out of town just to get me away from Henry. Now all of the sudden you're offering me an entire day alone with him? What gives?"

Sighing for the third time, Regina clasped her hands together at her waist. Accustomed to hiding the truth from even herself, she found herself in the unenviable position of doing something utterly distasteful: she was going to have to be honest with Emma. Sure, she could have lied, but that would have gotten her nowhere fast. For starters, Emma was a walking lie detector and would know if she was being dishonest, but also, she was just plain tired of lying. She was tired of lying to Emma, to Henry, to Red, and most importantly she was tired of lying to herself.

"Your suspicion is warranted," she began, "but I assure you, my offer is without ulterior motive where you are concerned. Something came to my attention that...woke me up, I suppose you could say. While I recognize that my former approach with you was to my own detriment, I have also come to realize that most importantly, it is to Henry's as well. Should I continue this pointless war with you, I may very well lose him, which is something I'm unwilling to do. I've already lost enough in my life. I don't want to lose my son as well and I'm only pushing him further away by keeping him from you."

"Wow, you really mean that," Emma breathed, having read no deceit in Regina's explanation. She straightened suddenly as a bright smile overcame her features. "Well, in that case, I'll take you up on your offer." Her face turned serious once more. "But don't think I've forgotten the past few weeks. There are no blank slates in life, Regina."

"I realize that and I wouldn't expect that of you," Regina replied. "But...seeing as that is decided, might I have that moment alone with Miss Lucas now?"

Again, Emma's eyes narrowed and it looked like she wanted to say something but refrained for the sake of keeping the unexpected accord they had forged.

"Okay," she said, then looked down at Ruby. "I'll call you later, okay Rubes?"

"Sure," Ruby replied, still gazing at Regina in that awestruck manner that made Regina's stomach flutter.

With a very strange look on her face, Emma harrumphed, nodded once to Regina and then turned on her heel to leave. Once the new Sheriff was clear of the doors, Regina gestured toward the vacated booth.

"May I sit?"

Ruby nodded enthusiastically. "Of course." Her eyes followed Regina as she slid into the booth, and the feeling of being so closely watched was not at all uncomfortable, rather the opposite. Regina could feel the familiar draw to Red resurfacing at an ever increasing pace, like a cord being reeled back in, and she knew Ruby felt it too. The heat of the girl's gaze was proof enough of that. "So," Ruby continued once Regina was situated, "what was it you wanted to talk about?"

Clasping her hands in her lap, Regina worried her lip. "Well, I suppose there's no sense in beating around the bush," she then said, her face showing both hesitation and anticipation in equal measures. "I know you've been getting close to our illustrious Sheriff, and I suppose watching that from the sidelines has made me curious as to whether you are seeing anyone in an official capacity."

Ruby's expression shifted into perplexity at the wildly unanticipated question, though she still sat up straighter with marked interest in her eyes. "I'm not," she said evenly, "though I'm not quite sure why you're curious. You never seemed to notice me much before."

That hurt. Looking abashed, Regina placed her elbows on the table and dropped her head into her hands.

"This is harder than I anticipated," she lamented, though she recognized she had no one to blame but herself. As uncomfortable as it was, she was going to have to be the one to put herself on the line. If she had to live through a bit of angsty awkwardness and embarrassment, so be it. It was the least she owed to Red after what she had done to them both by casting the curse.

To Regina's relief, Ruby did not respond immediately, instead choosing to wait patiently and with captive attention for Regina's elaboration. Her eyes were brimming with a hopefulness that was too long absent. Regina couldn't know it, but as Ruby waited, it was with crossed fingers at the cautious anticipation that her poor luck might finally be changing at last.

After Regina raised her head, she smiled wryly at Ruby. "I'm very rusty at this," she admitted, "and I know this might seem out of left field, but I was hoping you had noticed my rather frequent visits to the Diner. Granny's cooking is delicious, dear, but it's not that good."

Ruby got the gist of what Regina was getting at but needed to hear her say what she meant plainly, lest she risk being crushed. "So why come then?"

"For you," Regina replied bluntly, eyeing Ruby with unconcealed interest. It was nearly overwhelming to be so close to Red again after so many years apart. Up this close, Regina could see the flecks of blue she knew to reside in those brilliant green eyes, and she could make out the subtle lines in the muscles of those oh-so-kissable lips.

"Me?" Ruby asked, batting her eyes as she played the ingenue.

Some of Red was poking out beneath her Ruby suit, and to Regina it was equal parts exhilarating and frightening. It was exciting because she knew Ruby would not resist her advances for long, if at all, but scary because clearly the curse was much weaker than she had realized. Yet somehow, Regina was not as concerned as should have been about the integrity of her so-called happy ending. Interacting with Ruby in such a way, seeing Red come alive in her, made the loss of the curse seem almost tolerable. Almost.

"Mmhmm," Regina answered, punctuating the sound with a blatant leer. "Surely you must be aware of your allure. I can't be the first to be smitten by it. I may be Mayor, dear, and older than you, but I'm not blind. You are by far the most attractive person in this town and I would wager that there are few others in much larger ones who could compete with your beauty."

Counter to Regina's expectations, Ruby seemed to deflate, which made her heart lurch. Had she misstepped so badly? Most people enjoyed being flattered in a such a way, Red certainly had, so she didn't understand the wounded look on Ruby's face. She did not have to wait long for an explanation, though.

"So your interest in me is physical then?" Ruby replied, her voice and eyes equally dulled as though laced with a sadness that seemed to originate from deep inside her heart. It was a heartbreaking look, one that had Regina regretting her choice of words. "Can't say I haven't had that before. But it's fine, I'm used to it by now."

From the way Ruby talked, it sounded like no one had ever expressed an interest in her beyond the beauty of her face or what pleasure her body could provide, which was a sad commentary on the populace of Storybrooke. Couldn't they see what the girl had to offer? She supposed not. How could they when they were as blinded by the curse as Ruby was, for the young woman could not even recognize her own worth and seemed to be resigned to her fate as a pretty thing for people to look at or as a toy for them to play with, get their pleasure from, and then discard without a second thought. That, as well as the tacit confirmation that the rumors of Ruby's many indiscretions were true, sickened Regina.

Rather than let that derail her from her purpose, she stuffed down her reaction, though she was unable to completely smother her curiosity. Perhaps, as she had oft considered, Red's situation was written into the curse as some sort of backdoor revenge by Rumplestiltskin on his wayward pupil – a last laugh as it were to stain her victory. But whether that was true or not did not change Regina's complicity.

 _As such, shouldn't this be counted as part of my punishment?_ she thought, _to suffer secondhand through Red's indignities, all because I was too cowardly to set aside my pride and too entrenched in my lust for vengeance do anything about it_. And yet, wasn't it also part of her penance to convince Ruby that she was indeed worthy of love, that she had so much more to offer besides being a warm body to occupy someone's bed, that she was amazing and strong and so very deserving of happiness?

From that moment on, Regina swore to herself that things were going to change. There would be no more drunken one night stands for Ruby, no more uncaring and lust-driven suitors whose sole desire was to get into her pants. There would be no more lonely nights where she felt so despondent she was reduced to pouring her heart and soul out into the blackness of night, desperate for relief from her sadness as she howled at the moon via bitter tears and anguished screams.

Even though Regina had kept her distance from Red as she had sworn to herself she would, she was all too aware of how Ruby climbed to the top of the clock tower once a month when the full moon was waning (being the highest point in town, it was also closest to the moon) only to vent her sorrows where no one could hear her. Ruby's sadness on those nights was so thick as to be tangible. Over the course of the curse, Regina had spent far too many nights propped up against the library in the alleyway, listening to her lover's cries, fighting back her own tears to varying degrees of success as Ruby mourned for what she didn't even know she'd lost.

Looking back now, Regina was certain it was that soul crushing sadness that fueled Ruby's promiscuity, if only because she had once utilized the same outlet for her own depression. Sex was a quick and dirty fix, a temporary balm that allowed her brain to turn off from the noise of her constant agony if only for a little while. And even though Regina usually felt disgusted afterward, it was the only thing that worked, the only thing that gave her a measure of relief. As such, her carnal appetites only grew. Fueled by desperation to be rid of her torment, for a time she became reckless with her body, and if it had once been that way for her, she could not imagine what it was like for Red, who was inherently a more sexual being than Regina.

For Red, the wolf drove her to heights of passion that a normal person could not reach. When Regina took the werewolf as her lover, that insatiable libido had been an unexpected boon that she'd quite thoroughly availed herself of. But in Storybrooke things were different. The wolf had been confined to Ruby's body for 28 years now, unable to run and incapable of breaking free even for a moment from the cage the curse had placed her in. Sex may have been the only adequate way for the wolf to express herself without ripping her companion soul apart. And while knowing this helped Regina to understand Ruby's supposedly wanton behavior, that understanding did not make it any easier to reconcile herself with reality, for with every rumor that ran through her mind, her discontent grew, as did her hatred of both herself and the individuals who had dared to touch what belonged to her. But now, Regina had a rare and precious chance to set things right, to for Red what Red had done for her, which was mend her broken heart.

Gathering her courage, Regina caught Ruby's eyes, demanding, no...fervently pleading that the hurt young woman would listen and believe her.

"It's not just that," she said insistently, leaning over the table to extend out her hand – an offer that startled the wounded looking waitress. It was a bold gesture but Regina couldn't abide for another moment the thought that Ruby believed all she wanted was a meaningless fling. For a long moment, her hand sat untouched on the table, but just as she was about to withdraw it with keen disappointment, Ruby reached out to slide her hand over Regina's proffered one.

When contact was made, both women's eyes fixated on their joined appendages, watching with rapt fascination as their fingers tangled as though designed to fit together, mutually arrested by the emotions elicited by the simple feeling of skin on skin. Regina's heart began to race. She could sense the stares of the Diner's patrons on her and Ruby's linked hands but tuned them out. _To hell with the plebeians_ _of Storybooke_ , she thought, _let them think what they want_.

"It's not just that," she again stated, echoing for emphasis as she turned longing eyes up to catch Ruby's, which were wide with wonder at what was happening. "You fascinate me. I feel drawn to you. I have since the day I first set foot in this diner. Can you deny you feel it, too?"

To Regina's delight, Ruby shook her head.

"And yes," she continued, "I'm attracted to you but not just to your impressive physique and astoundingly pretty face. I'm captivated to the bright young woman who somehow manages to always have a smile on her face even when her day has been absolute rubbish, and who makes my coffee every morning just the way I like it without having to be asked because she remembers those kinds of things and is thoughtful and kind in that way. I'm fascinated by the amazing person who endures her grandmother's legendary temper day after day to work a thankless job for relatively bad pay, all because she's loyal and so full of love that she puts everyone else ahead of herself. I see you for who you are, Ruby, and you are incredible to me. I'm just sorry it took me so long to say it."

It was the best speech Regina had ever given, she thought, semi-astounded that she had actually expressed herself in such an eloquent way. She was sure Ruby was equally shocked judging by the girl's expression, though that shock was by no means negative, for in rapid fashion a deep blush painted her porcelain cheeks – staining them the color of her namesake – which then spread down to cover the elegant length of her neck. She ducked her head under the weight of Regina's praise.

"I...I..." she began, starting and halting several times while trying to formulate a response.

Still clutching Ruby's hand, Regina leaned over the table to tip the girl's chin up with her free index finger. She smiled gently at the suddenly shy waitress when her face was unveiled from her curtain of brown hair. "Now, now. No need to be shy. I've only told the truth."

"Sorry," Ruby apologized, blushing more deeply. "I can't help it. I never thought I'd ever hear anyone tell me something like that and actually mean it, not to mention it being you. I mean, you're such an intimidating person and not in a bad way at all. It's just...you're a single mom who raised an awesome kid all by herself, and a powerful woman who runs this town like a well oiled machine, and you're just...God, you say I'm pretty, but you're gorgeous. Like, you walk into a room and I can't breathe because you're so freakin' hot kind of gorgeous, and I've had a crush on you for the longest, though I never imagined in my wildest dreams that you might feel the same way. 'Cause look at me, I'm just a poor waitress who looks like a bad hybrid between a goth and a hooker, and you're just...well, you: elegant, sophisticated, perfect...all the things I'm not and never will be. And I'm also a bumbling idiot, and I'm sorry...again."

Regina couldn't contain the incandescent grin that formed across her features. "My God, you really are adorable." She also couldn't quite believe she had called anyone adorable but if any fit the description it was Ruby...Red...Ruby/Red. In that way, the curse had changed very little and Regina was very glad of it. She had always secretly loved the adorable part of Red that made her insides melt in an altogether pleasant way.

Clenching her eyes shut, Ruby groaned as her already red face turned nearly crimson. "Oh, God...kill me now."

"Well, I hope he doesn't," Regina purred, "because that would be a damn shame. I had such plans for us on Saturday."

That did the trick. Ruby's eyes shot open and she looked at Regina with such eagerness that Regina was almost wishing it was Saturday already.

"You do?"

"Oh, yes, dear," Regina confirmed, drawing her thumb over the smooth back of Ruby's hand. It pleased her to see the girl shiver at the gesture. The anticipation of having Red in her arms, in her bed, and her in life again was so sweet that Regina was almost salivating. "That is, if you are amenable to a date with me."

"I..." Ruby responded, gaping like a fish. Regina grinned at her floundering, enjoying the effect she was having. It had been a long time since Red reacted in such a way with her; it was almost like they were back at the beginning all over again when Red was making such endearingly naive overtures and expressing awe upon them being reciprocated. "Really? You want to go on a date? With me? Are you sure?"

Regina chuckled, not even a little annoyed. "I wouldn't have asked if I wasn't."

"Well, then, I accept," Ruby replied, a grin of her own stretching comfortably across her face, just like it belonged there. Red's smile had always been so beautiful to Regina that she thought it should be a crime for the girl to ever be sad. And at that moment, she wanted to be the person who put those smiles on Red's face for the rest of time, because it felt so damn good that she never wanted to lose the feeling.

"Can you be to my house by 7 pm?"

"Ooo," Ruby drawled, "I get to pick you up and everything? Wow."

"You're not picking me up, dear," Regina said, her smile turning a bit more sultry. "I'm inviting you over. I thought I'd cook us a nice dinner so that we can enjoy ourselves without the added social pressure. Though I am Mayor, I am a private woman, so I'd like to keep things relatively discreet for the time being." She glanced around the diner and glared at a few of the patrons who were still staring. They reacted by turning away with fear in their eyes, which pleased Regina immensely. "Besides, I love to cook and I think you'll find me to be of comparable skill to your grandmother in that department. What comes after...well, that's entirely up to you."

Turning her head, Ruby's eyes widened as her breathing picked up, and despite her effort at concealment, Regina could hear her silent exclamation of, "Oh, God, she's going to cook for me? And after? Is this really happening?"

Chuckling again, Regina squeezed Ruby's hand to draw her attention. "I assure you, Ruby, this is really happening. So what do you say? Can I expect to see you at 7 on Saturday?"

Still breathing a bit heavily, Ruby managed to reply, "I'll be there."

"Splendid!" Regina smiled and then released Ruby's hand after one last squeeze. She then slid from the booth and stood, grabbing her purse and scarf in the process. "Don't be late, dear, and please do not feel the need to dress up. Wear something comfortable. You've no need to impress me. I am already," she exaggerated a leer so inappropriately amorous that Ruby blushed for a third time and squirmed uncomfortably in her seat, "suitably impressed."

Nodding, the girl gulped audibly. _Simply adorable_ , Regina thought once more as she turned to depart the diner. She couldn't wait for Saturday.


	4. Spiral

**Standard Disclaimer** : The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately and I will correct them.

 **Chapter 4** – Spiral

Ruby was nervous. With the way her stomach was fluttering, she felt like a girl about to go on her first date. It was a strange feeling for someone with as much experience with romance as she had, but there was just something about Regina that was calling to her, motivating her to step up her game in every way. Not only did she feel pressured to be on her best behavior, she needed to look perfect in order to make a good first impression.

Stepping up to the door at 108 Mifflin Street, she gave herself one last critical appraisal before knocking to announce her arrival. It was Saturday night at last, and though Regina had told her not to dress up, for some odd reason she felt compelled to impress the woman. Accustomed to dressing for effect, Ruby decided forgo her normal preferences for dress to defer to Regina's stated guidelines and along that line, she settled on a casual yet sexy look. It was a compromise between Regina's wishes and her own, the best of both worlds as it were.

In preparing for the date, Ruby was extra careful to thread the needle between alluring and subtle, having made sure to apply a modest amount of makeup that was not too little and not too much but just the right amount to accentuate her eyes and cheeks. Also, instead of straightening her hair after her shower like she normally did for work or for other outings, she'd chosen to allow her natural curl to return, an impulsive decision that literally hit her out of nowhere earlier that day. Leaving it tumbling down her shoulders and back, she pinned a portion of her bangs braided and pinned over her right ear, creating a look somewhere between girlish debutante and alluringly mature temptress.

As for clothing, Ruby chose her favorite pair of skin-tight white washed jeans, torn artfully in a few places at the thigh. She loved these jeans because of the way they fit, clinging to her skin like an artificial second layer and accentuating not only her ass but the length and shape of her best asset: her legs. She hoped Regina would appreciate her choice and had a sneaking suspicion that the endlessly fascinating woman would do just that.

On more than one occasion, Ruby had caught Regina staring at her legs, although that was something she was not unused to. Most of the town stared at her legs, particularly when she was feeling frisky enough to wear her short-shorts, which quite honestly was most of the time. The feeling of being ogled never bothered Ruby so long as it was just looking without touching being involved. There were a few notable offenders in Storybrooke that she'd had to slap (on either hands or faces, whichever was closer), but for the most part, no one bothered her in that way. For some reason, though, she wanted Regina to touch her, craved it in a way that was very inappropriate for a first date with such a cultured lady as Regina. Still, she knew that if she was to draw Regina's attention without being lewd, her jeans were perfect for the job.

After squeezing and shimmying her jeans her jeans up and over her hips, Ruby chose a red strapless bra that matched her lacy panties, and then topped the look off with a well-fit burgundy sweater which hung off her shoulders and showed just the right amount of belly. The sweater was something she'd bought impulsively for the date with Regina. The second she was off work, Ruby had hit the stores, searching and searching for the perfect item to go with her whitewashed jeans. She had just about given up hope when she stumbled upon the sweater. While it wasn't her favorite shade of red, it was muted enough so as to appear more sophisticated yet bold enough to impress. The finishing touch was a pair of stilettos the same shade of red as her sweater. All in all, she thought the ensemble went together quite nicely. But that was before she had been standing in front of Regina's door, about to go on the most important date of her life.

Suddenly a little self-conscious, Ruby glanced down to study herself as best she could, hoping that she was setting the right tone. In matters of the heart and of the flesh, she had the unfortunate tendency of being a little too forward, which scared some people off. To those skittish individuals, her hyper-aggressive sexuality was a turnoff. Most of her paramours seemed to enjoy it, though. However, where Regina was concerned, Ruby was not quite sure what the enigmatic woman liked and therefore was unsure of how she should dress or behave. One thing was very certain: she did not to want to mess this up, and thus her somewhat conservative choice of apparel.

And speaking of Regina's proposition, the intimation that things might end in bed was not a new experience for Ruby. An all-too-large percentage of her social interactions outside of work tended to end that way. However, what _was_ new for her was going on a real honest-to-God date, which in her own mind was a sad commentary on the quality of her love life. Sure, she had her fair share of sex, but it was always empty and meaningless. Sex worked to slake her more fleshly appetites, but beyond that, it never made her feel any less lonely than she had beforehand, which is why she only went out once a month when moon was at its fullest. Granny liked to joke that she was prime example of how people went crazy during the full moon, and while Ruby would have loved to refute the claim, she pretty much agreed. The monthly ritual was as inexplicable to her as it was uncontrollable.

Outside of those few days a month, she was not so reckless with her body. Normally, during the rest of the month she did a whole lot of nothing, following the same routine: wake up, get dressed, eat a bite, run to the Diner, wait tables and then do laundry for the B&B until she was ready to drop, and then fall into bed when she got up to her room. This pattern always held until that time of the month when she got so stir-crazy that she couldn't contain herself any longer. On those occasions, she would make her way to the Rabbit Hole to get drunk and blow off steam, which almost always ended badly for her because they entailed her either passing out in the Camaro or waking up in some random person's bed.

Sleeping around like that created a lot of conflict in Ruby. It always felt great in the moment because sex was quite literally the best distraction ever, and she always chose her partners well despite being hammered out of her mind. The men she went home with (and odd woman here and there) were always very attractive and usually very skilled lovers, but that did not make Ruby feel any better come morning when she was waking up to a pounding headache and a mountain of shame. Ever since she could remember, she'd tried to come up with an explanation as to why the same thing happened to her every month but could never adequately justify the unhinged and frenzied passion that possessed her. It was almost as if for a few nights a month, she stopped being herself and someone else took control of her body. When she came back to herself within a few days time, all she was left with were the physical reminders of her activities and crushing amounts of regret.

Ruby did not want to regret Regina and ever more than that, she did not want Regina to regret her. She was pretty sure that her worries were completely without merit because Regina seemed like a woman who was sure of herself and knew what she wanted, so, if she said she wanted Ruby, it was more than likely a frank statement of fact, and besides that, Regina was not the type to sleep around at all. To Ruby's knowledge, the Mayor had only taken one lover, Sheriff Graham, and that hadn't lasted long before Regina ended things. So where her date was concerned, Ruby had no doubts. It was herself that she doubted, if only due to her insecurity of not being good enough. She couldn't understand what a high-class woman like Regina saw in middle-class loser like her.

On a good day Ruby felt unbelievably unworthy of breathing the same air as the regally sophisticated woman, so how was she supposed to cope with actually dating Regina? Or sleeping with her? Ruby's previous track record suggested that she wouldn't be able to cope, that she would mess up somehow because that was what she did. Whenever something good came her way, it either fell through or she found a way to wreck it. Ruby broke things, including people. There had been more than one of her repeat lovers that got a little too attached, sending Ruby into a spiral of panic that always resulted in her running away with her tail between her legs only to cut off all contact with that person. There were at least 2 individuals she could name offhand that she had left devastated in her wake.

Beginning to pace on the front porch, Ruby became consumed with worry the more she thought about where this seemed to be going. It was no secret that Regina was not a woman to trifle about with, nor was she someone who made advances on someone flippantly. Regina, so far as Ruby was aware, did not do one night stands. So if the older woman was genuinely interested in dating, it was because she was looking to the long term and not for short term pleasure. While Ruby was many things, she wasn't an idiot; she knew the dangers that were lurking just beyond the door right in front of her, not only for her prospective paramour but for herself.

For longer than Ruby could remember, she had wanted Regina. In fact, it was hard to remember a time when she hadn't entertained fantasies about kissing those plump lips right over the prominent scar that marred them, or about discovering just how soft that olive skin really was because it looked so damn soft that Ruby wanted touch and taste every square inch of it, or about what it would feel like to wake up next to the stunningly gorgeous woman, all wrapped up in her bare flesh to bare flesh and just bury her face in sleep-ruffled raven hair. But truthfully, it went far beyond fantasy for Ruby. She was smitten and had been for since the moment she'd laid eyes on Regina, and that's why it seemed unreal that she was being given this opportunity. It was one that she could not afford to screw up, for it was the kind that only came around once in a lifetime.

"Are you going to wear a path out on my porch or come in, dear?" a voice broke through Ruby's anxious thoughts, startling her pacing to a halt.

Turning to the door, Ruby discovered Regina leaning against the jamb, barefoot and looking incredible in a simple pair of ebony slacks and a sleeveless cream colored blouse. Ruby had been so distracted that she hadn't even heard the door open. In the face of such a spectacular vision of perfection, her ability to speak fled. Gaping like a hormonal teenager, she was unable to help openly stared at Regina, to which the older woman smirked in a very mischievous manner. Butterflies began to churn in Ruby's stomach.

"S-sorry," Ruby eventually stammered out, shamefaced at her immature behavior. Her heart thrummed rapidly in her chest.

"Don't be sorry," Regina throatily replied, her eyes glinting with humor, and then allowed the smirk she was wearing to transform into a welcoming smile that warmed Ruby's insides. Turning in the doorway, Regina raised her arm toward the inside of the house. "Please, come in."

With a stunted nod, Ruby stepped through the door, passing so close by Regina that her shoulder accidentally and every so lightly brushed against the older woman's breasts. It was a small mercy that Regina chose not to comment while Ruby bit back a groan and concentrated intently on keeping one foot in front of the other. Being so distracted by arousal, she had to be cautious of her 4-inch heels. The last thing she wanted was to trip on the stairs and face-plant on Regina's landing. Not the kind of impression she was aiming for.

As she stepped into the house properly, Ruby heard the door shut behind her and then felt the heat of Regina's dark eyes on her body while the woman followed her inside. A shiver of delight jolted its way down her spine. She was getting worked up without any effort at all on Regina's part aside from the heady gravity of her presence. Ruby had never had such a visceral reaction to a person's mere proximity before, and if it didn't abate soon, her self-control was going to slip sometime during the next few hours.

"So, wow, your house is amazing," she said, initiating conversation to distract herself. It was true, too. The house was amazing.

It was a first for Ruby to be inside the Mayoral mansion. Her initial impression was that it fit Regina to a tee. The complexity of the interior seemed to reflect its owner perfectly, as it was sophisticated yet simple, varying between modern and classical. Every piece of furniture, every portrait and painting, and every decorative vase or bowl or figurine she laid eyes on looked expensive; yet even so, they lacked even a hint of ostentation which she would have expected to reside inside the magnificent home of an obviously wealthy woman. All in all, it was as stylish a house as Ruby had ever seen, even in the magazines she often looked at while bored at work during the lull between the lunch and dinner rushes.

"Why, thank you," Regina replied, brimming with pride that Ruby appreciated her style. "I designed it myself."

Her brow furrowing, Ruby looked over her shoulder at Regina from the portrait of an apple tree she was studying. "Huh? I always thought this house looked really old. No offense."

Her comment seemed to catch Regina completely off guard. The mayor stood still as a statue for a long moment with wide and panicked eyes. _Very strange_ , Ruby thought.

"Well, of course I meant the remodel," Regina corrected. "I had it redone several years ago, and no offense taken. You were correct in your assumption, the house is very old, but sometimes the older things in life are the better things, wouldn't you agree?"

Though Ruby accepted the explanation, she could tell there was something Regina wasn't telling her. Even so, she found it did not matter much to her. Rather than question Regina further, she decided to address the innuendo, an obvious reference to their age difference. She hoped it didn't bother Regina to be a fair bit older than Ruby, because honestly, she could care less. To be fair, though, she didn't even know how old Regina really was and she wasn't dumb enough to ask.

"I agree wholeheartedly," Ruby said instead, her head tilting slightly as she allowed an easy smile to cross her features. Her eyes were glinting so as to reflect her understanding of Regina's point. "It's kinda like wine. Age refines it, makes it fuller and more satisfying. When its mature it can linger on your tongue for hours and fill your senses. I think it's because it's had time to settle into itself, like its comfortable in its skin, you know? Not that I'm a wine connoisseur or anything. Just an observation."

"That may be so but it was well said nonetheless," Regina replied, looking very pleased and very affected by Ruby's own double entendre. "I'm glad you see things my way, although I have to confess, you are much smoother than I imagined you to be."

Ruby laughed at that. "Hardly. I'm kinda bad at this to be honest." She shrugged bashfully. "Not really been a dating kinda girl. You can probably tell that because of the way I dressed tonight, but I wasn't really sure what to wear. I didn't want to overdress but I didn't want to under dress either. I just hope what I picked out is okay and I _really_ hope that I won't embarrass myself too much tonight. But just in case, you should be prepared because I probably will."

Reaching out her hand, Regina placed it gently on Ruby's forearm, gripping lightly. It was a steady and warm pressure that felt wonderful, and which immediately relaxed her nerves.

"Just be yourself, dear," Regina said as she rubbed a few times very gently over Ruby's forearm. "That's all I expect. And I happen to already think you're an amazing woman, this coming from someone who is only just getting to know you properly. If I'm right, which I normally am, I will only be more awed as I come to know you better. As for your attire, well, I think you look lovely and I'm not saying that to be polite. I mean it."

Ruby blushed and ducked her head for long enough to take a deep breath before returning her gaze to Regina. "You look incredible, too. I mean, I think you _always_ look incredible. Hell, you probably wake up looking incredible. But thank you for the kind words, I can't tell you how much they mean to me."

"You're welcome," Regina chuckled. "As for the rest, I'm sure you're bound to be disappointed. No one wakes up looking incredible, even me." Her eyes twinkled despite the self-disparagment. "However, if you play your cards right in the future, perhaps you'll get to see for yourself."

And with that, she stepped up into the hallway from the foyer and then sauntered away from Ruby, her hips swaying dramatically in a show that Ruby was praying was all for her. Even if it wasn't, Ruby enjoyed it immensely, feeling a coiling tension in the pit of her belly begin to spread southward until she was clenching her legs together to stifle her body's reaction.

Swearing, she turned back toward the door to collect herself. Ruby had thought that Regina's earlier proposition was as tempting of one as she had ever gotten, but the woman just had to go and one up herself. As a result, Ruby was pleasantly flustered. Her mind kept conjuring up images of what Regina would look like hovering over top of her, the warmth of her skin and the delicious weight of her body pressing down onto all the right places.

Shaking her head furiously, Ruby bit the inside of her cheek until the pain tempered her desire. She had to put away all such thoughts or her night was going to be miserable trying to contain her primal urges. It was already hard enough to be in Regina's potently sensual alpha presence without either melting into a puddle of goo or jumping her bones. If Ruby dwelt for long on the fact that Regina wanted her in such a way, her libido would quite literally run wild and she was already so turned on that she was weak at the knees.

"It takes two for a date, Miss Lucas," Regina called from down the hallway where Ruby guessed the dining room was.

"Coming," she replied after taking a series of deep, calming breaths. Stepping up onto the floor of the landing, she made her way towards where Regina's voice originated from. After rounding the corner of a doorway, she stepped into a large and open dining space. There in the middle of it a round table was set for two, covered by an expensive looking handwoven embroidered cloth and set in two places with delicate china, silverware, two fat crystalline wine glasses, and perfectly folded napkins. Gentle white candles resting in two five-stemmed silver fluted candlesticks served as the only light source, giving the room a very romantic glow.

"I hope it's to your liking," Regina said from where she stood behind one of the chairs, holding it out as she waited patiently for Ruby. "Dinner is ready but I have it on standby in the oven for the moment. Why don't you come and sit?"

Choked with emotion, Ruby wordlessly made her way over to the chair and took a seat. She was overwhelmed. No one had ever done anything like that for her. She always figured she was the kind of person people thought such gestures were wasted on. She wasn't. Despite her particular brand of dress and her monthly binges, Ruby was as much a sucker for romance as the next girl, and if anyone had ever bothered to ask her or get to know her beyond what they could get out of her, they would have realized that.

Yet here was a Regina, freely offering Ruby only ever dreamed about: being properly romanced, seduced, and lavished with attention. That Regina – a woman who could literally have any man or woman of her choosing and who just so happened to be the woman of Ruby's dreams – had chosen to show such attention to her was more than a little surreal. She felt like pinching herself to ensure she was still awake.

"I love it," she managed to reply after a moment, her voice tight as she choked back tears. "I...I'm...it's so wonderful. Thank you so much."

"Are you crying?" Regina asked after hearing a sniffle.

"No," Ruby lied, trying to surreptitiously wipe away her unshed tears. She was unable to do so before Regina knelt down next to her chair and was staring at Ruby as if worried she had done something wrong.

"Was it something I said or did?" Regina guessed, chewing her bottom lip anxiously. "Is it the candles? Too much too soon? I can take them away..."

"No, no," Ruby interrupted, "it's not that." She sniffled again as her chin trembled. Cursing herself internally, she averted her gaze so that Regina would not see this fresh wave of embarrassing emotion.

"Hey," Regina drew back Ruby's attention with a delicate finger under her chin, "you don't have to hide from me. Tell me what's wrong. _Please_. I want to fix it if I can."

"It's not you," Ruby said, not sure how to explain how she was feeling. "It's me. I just..." She sighed helplessly. "I'm being stupid. I'm sorry."

Regina looked so earnest that Ruby's chest ached. "It's not stupid if it's brought you to tears."

"I'm just not used to this kinda thing," she explained lamely. "The whole candles and cooking dinner for me and generally being interested in me as a person is not something I experience very often...ever really"

"Ruby," Regina sighed, looking grieved at such a pitiful statement. Ruby understood. She thought it was pretty pitiful, too.

"I know. Pathetic, huh?"

"Not at all!" Regina responded with fervency, her brows drawn together and her lips frowning as if she found the suggestion distasteful. "It's not your fault the idiots in this town can't see what's right in front of them!" Breathing through her nose, Regina allowed a smiled to grace her features as she then took Ruby's hand between both of hers and raised it to her lips. The chaste yet reverent kiss she placed there made Ruby gasp. "Luckily for me, I _can_ see." Turning her brown eyes up to Ruby, Regina's gaze seemed to penetrate beyond the surface into Ruby's heart where her hurt was warring with her hope. "I see you, Ruby Lucas," she whispered, drawing Ruby's hands up to place another kiss on her knuckles, "and in you, I see someone who deserves to be appreciated. If you would allow me, it would be my honor to show you that in whatever way I can."

Breathless with wonderment, Ruby could only gaze at Regina, transfixed by the sudden warmth in her eyes. This was a side of Regina that Ruby had not imagined existed, a side that was romantic and thoughtful and insightful, that wanted to find someone to care for and spend herself for that person. A day ago, Ruby would have laughed off any such suggestion concerning Regina as absurd, but yesterday was over, and today, Regina was revealing a part of her heart to Ruby, laying herself more open and vulnerable than Ruby had ever seen her before. It was a humbling experience for Ruby to be someone Regina trusted enough to show this side of herself. Beyond that, it was thrilling yet terrifying in equal measure, for it exposed the fact that Ruby had the same power to hurt Regina as Regina to hurt her.

Finally, she was meeting someone on equal ground and it felt incredible. Along with that awareness came a slight amount of panic because Ruby also realized there was not going to be any taking this slow for her. She was going to fall hard and fast. Hell, she was already falling. And if what Regina had just said was any indication, the older woman was well on that same path. One part of Ruby, the cynical girl who had been hurt too many times, thought this relationship had disaster written all over it, but the other part of her, the part that still dreamed and hoped, was screaming at her to take a chance, to step out into the waters and wade in until she was completely immersed.

In the end, it was her better self that won. Ruby was tired of hurting and tired of living her life under a dark cloud of depression. She was tired of being lonely and feeling like no one really cared about her besides her Granny. For so long, she had yearned for someone, for anyone to make her feel wanted and alive, to make her feel like it was possible to be herself and be accepted for it. Here and now, with Regina, she felt at last like she had found that person and rather than being on her heel ready to run, she felt prepared to take the plunge.

Taking a steadying breath, Ruby smiled her biggest smile, her eyes watering with emotion. "I would like that very much."

Regina's resultant smile surpassed Ruby's in brightness. "I know things are moving fast, but..." Stopping, Regina flicked her eyes down to Ruby's lips and then back up before moistening her own in an inviting way that made Ruby heat up from her toes to her head. Ruby could feel her eyes dilate and her heart begin to pound.

"But?"

Worrying her bottom lip, Regina blushed. "I was wondering if you would allow me to kiss you."

Now breathing more heavily, Ruby leaned forward and down, inching her face closer to Regina's until their noses were brushing together and she could smell the sweetness of Regina's breath. Apples and cinnamon. She couldn't wait discover if Regina tasted as delicious as she smelled.

Leaning forward a fraction more, Ruby hovered her lips over Regina's. Looking into the Mayor's eyes, she saw them laden with desire.

"I would be offended if you didn't."

Without further preamble, Regina closed the gap and pressed her lips to Ruby's lips, drawing in a deep breath through her nose as they made contact. Ruby whimpered and pulled away as her senses were suddenly under assault. It felt like the instant Regina's lips touched hers she could hear everything in the entire house, every creak of the wood, and every subtle movement of the water in the pipes overhead. Her nose was being overwhelmed by various scents, such as the smell of dinner waiting in the oven (it smelled amazing), but mostly she was surrounded by the fragrances of the woman before her. The complex blend of Regina's essence and obviously growing desire was intoxicating.

"I'm sorry," Regina apologized, retreating back into herself when Ruby broke the kiss, her face a mixture of arousal and heartbreak. "That was too forward of me. I'll just go and get dinner. Please, don't let this ruin our evening."

When Regina tried to stand, Ruby reacted quickly, gripping her arm and pulling her back down. "Don't you dare," she insisted, her nostrils flaring. She felt like a woman possessed, like something deep down inside of her had been unleashed and was tearing its way to the surface, and all it wanted was Regina. It wanted to devour the woman whole, to swallow her breath and taste her skin, to lay claim on her mind, body, and soul until she was screaming out her release.

Wide eyed, Regina looked at Ruby who hadn't realized she was panting. "Are you alright?"

Nodding, Ruby leaned forward once more, nearly pained by the extremity of her want and need for the woman before her.

 _Regina_ , a voice in her head growled. _My Queen. Regina, my Queen._

Not understanding what was going on, Ruby willed her mind to still and refocused her attention, though she had to concede how correct the voice was. It was like Regina had taken possession of her, had effortlessly ascended to the throne of Ruby's life to rule and reign over her heart, and all in the span of a few brief minutes. Such an abrupt development should have sent Ruby scurrying for the hills, but instead, it felt like the most natural and perfect thing in the world, as if she was exactly where she wanted – no, needed – to be.

"I won't be if you don't kiss me again," Ruby then replied, almost growling with the same low, rumbling timbre as the voice in her head.

Regina's worry melted off her face, replaced by a smugly lascivious expression. "Well," she practically purred, "we can't have that can we?"

Breathing heavily, Ruby shook her head, "No, no we can't. So kiss me dammit!"

Looking absolutely thrilled, Regina grinned. "Pushy, pushy, Miss Lucas. Tell me are you going to be this insistent in b..."

Too impatient to allow Regina to finish speaking, Ruby surged forward, pulling them both up to stand and then seized Regina's mouth in a searing kiss. Immediately, she slanted her head to deepen it, simultaneously winding her arms around Regina's shoulders and drawing her closer until they were pressed together chest to chest. A husky moan passed through Regina's chest and then reverberated its way down into Ruby's body, causing Ruby to respond with one of her own. She felt Regina's hand slide down her back to where the hem of her sweater stopped an inch above her jeans. At the very same moment those silken hands slid underneath the fabric to press against Ruby's bare flesh, the older woman thrust her tongue through the threshold of Ruby's parted lips.

Bucking forward involuntarily, Ruby felt herself grow almost painfully aroused. After a minute of heated kissing and groping, Ruby pulled away, panting loudly.

"Take me to bed, Regina," she insisted between bouts of the feverish attention Regina was paying to her flushed neck.

Forgetting all about their dinner, Ruby lost herself to the sensations Regina was eliciting from her ready and willing body. No one had ever made her feel so close to the edge of reckless abandon. Regina, it seemed, had a key to Ruby's body that was capable of unlocking whatever emotion, whatever physical reaction she wanted. Whereas most of the time such a lack of control made Ruby leery, she felt so safe with Regina that she lost all such reservations.

"With pleasure," Regina replied after finally parting from Ruby's neck. Ruby whined at the loss of contact. Chuckling, offered her hand to Ruby, her eyes smoldering furnaces of coal. "May I?"

"You may," Ruby replied in breathy wonder, still so lost in her arousal that she was not entirely certain whether or not this was real or just the greatest dream ever. If it was, she never wanted to wake up.

After taking Regina's hand, Ruby let herself be lead out of the dining room, into the hallway, and then up the stairs. The entire time, her hand never let go of Regina's and her eyes never wavered from watching the graceful woman move. It was incredible how effortlessly elegant and painfully sexy Regina was. She was, Ruby decided, the kind of woman for whom poetry was written and songs were sang, the kind that people stood in awe of and men went to war for. She was a goddess straight from Olympus who just so happened to be clad in Armani.

Once they were up the stairs, Regina lead Ruby to the end of the hallway to an open door and wasted no time in guiding them both inside. Ruby did not even get the opportunity to look around before she was being maneuvered to the side of the ridiculously large and comfortable looking bed.

With her hands on Ruby's hips, Regina quirked an eyebrow and quirked up the corner of her lips. "Shall I undress you or would you like to do so yourself."

Ruby shuddered. Could this night possibly get any better? "You."

"Mmm," Regina purred, "good answer."

Enthralled by every movement and every touch of Regina's fingers, Ruby allowed herself to be undressed. First, Regina instructed her to kick off her heels which she did promptly. Now much closer in height, Regina stepped into Ruby's personal space and brought their bodies together. Her hands slipping around Ruby's back, she leaned in for a long kiss that was deep and probing and worshipful in nature.

Sighing into the kiss, Ruby felt one of Regina's hands work its way down to rest on her jean-clad ass as the other slipped around to undo the catch of her jeans. When Ruby felt the pressure of the waistband relax, she knew the Mayor had succeeded in her goal. In very quick succession, Regina was sliding down the zipper and breaking the kiss to shimmy her way down Ruby's legs while bringing the jeans along for the ride, all the while keeping constant eye contact. It was one of the most erotic things Ruby had ever seen.

After her jeans were around her feet, Ruby stepped out of them. Unable to move or speak and completely entranced, Ruby watched as Regina traced lazy patterns with her finger tips and smoothed her palms over the skin of Ruby's calves and thighs. The feeling was phenomenal. Everywhere Regina touched, she left a trail of heat behind that unerringly worked it's way up into Ruby's belly, flooding her with warmth. Regina then proceeded to slide her hands slowly up Ruby's bare legs as she worked herself upright until she was standing once more.

Next, Regina reached up to the hem of Ruby's sweater, tucked her fingers underneath it, and then lifted the garment up until the pale flesh of her abdomen was exposed. Again, heated fingers were on Ruby's skin, causing her abdominal muscles to contract with every touch. She heard Regina hum with appreciation at the sight.

"Exquisite."

Taking her time, Regina then ran an open palm up the expanse of Ruby's stomach, pushing the sweater up ever higher as she went. Blazing brown eyes followed the progress of her hand all the way up to the curve of Ruby's breasts. Stopped there, Regina traced the outline of the sheer bra, causing Ruby to shudder and involuntarily press forward.

"Patience," Regina teased, smiling lazily. "Arms."

Ruby understood what was being asked of her and complied by lifting her arms to the ceiling. Her eyes slid shut when Regina pulled the sweater up and over her head, and then opened them once it had been removed to see the commanding woman gazing with open admiration at Ruby's almost completely revealed body. Unlike when most people got her undressed, Ruby actually felt good about being appreciated. Regina was not lewdly leering but respectfully projecting her desire.

Raising her eyes to meet Ruby's, Regina reached out once more to cup Ruby's covered breast. Moaning wantonly at the contact, Ruby leaned into Regina's hand. The touch was so gentle and reverent that it caused heat to pool low in her belly.

"My God," Regina breathed, "you are so beautiful."

"Mmm," Ruby replied, gasping as Regina brushed a thumb over a taut nipple. "So are you."

Removing her hand, Regina replaced them on Ruby's hips and then guiding them both back to the bed. With a gentle push from Regina, Ruby sat down on the edge and watched with rapt attention as Regina made quick work of her own clothes. A set of black lacy underwear was soon revealed, which accentuated every luscious curve and looked so amazing against Regina's olive skin that Ruby reached out to touch her.

Catching Ruby's hands mid-air, Regina guided the appendages to her hips and then stepped in close. After situating herself between receptively open legs, Regina then grasped Ruby's face between both hands, cupping around her ears so that Regina's thumbs were resting high on Ruby's cheeks. Looking down at Ruby, Regina's jaw-length hair fluttered forward, framing her face and casting a mysteriously heavy shadow over her features. Her eyes were pools of indiscernible emotion, fathomless, dark, and deep. Whatever it was Regina was feeling, it was momentous in nature.

Brushing her thumbs tenderly against Ruby's cheeks, Regina stepped in even closer, her back bowing inward to make contact with Ruby's front. Something shifted in the air between them, becoming more charged, more consequential, as if the world were rotating beneath the gravity of what was going on in one bedroom in Storybrooke, Maine between two magnetically attracted women.

Parting her lips, Regina breathed a heavy breath. "I'm going to make love you to now."

"Please, Regina," Ruby begged, her entire being feeling like kindling ready to be sparked by Regina's consuming flames. " _Please._ "

With an almost otherworldly smile, Regina bent down and kissed Ruby, pouring all of her energy and all of her affection into it. Ruby melted into the other woman, surrendering herself to thoroughly attentive lips as she slid hands arms from Regina's waist to wrap them around the small of her back. Just as she imagined, the skin there was like satin under her fingertips. Parting her lips for her older lover, Ruby sighed into Regina's mouth as the older woman tilted her head to change the angle.

In that instant, with that subtle movement, something shifted again. With an influx of gravity that made it seem like the very fabric of the universe was being irrevocably altered, a mystical atmosphere descended over the room, flooding Ruby's already overloaded senses. The kiss changed, transforming into something so much more than just a physical act; rather, it seemed to Ruby like it was becoming a spiritual experience, and that her heart and soul were being permanently imprinted by the unspoken depths of Regina's passion.

Barely able to form the required coherence to do so, the brief thought flitted through Ruby's mind that of all the amazing kisses she had been on receiving end of, none compared to this. Surrounded by the enthralling, ultra-stimulating smells and tastes of the woman in her arms, Ruby gave herself over to pure instinct and emptied herself of all conscious thought, allowing every inch of her body, every facet of her being to be flooded with Regina and Regina alone.

With every languid kiss that followed, every nip of Regina's mouth and teeth on Ruby's lips and jaw and neck, Ruby was being brought back to life again as if from a slumbering coma she hadn't known she was in. And as Regina pushed Ruby back to lay across the bed, a whispered promise was made that the next few hours were going to be the most memorable of her life.

It was.


	5. Snacks and Snuggles

**Standard Disclaimer** : The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately and I will correct them.

 **Chapter 5** – Snacks And Snuggles

Regina woke from her nap with a contented sigh, feeling sated down to the marrow. Her body was pleasantly aching in places that had been far too long without proper attention. Ruby had seen to that, though, with two hours worth of unbridled passion and pure ecstasy in which the she proved to be just skilled a lover as Regina remembered her being, not that she had expected any different.

What _had_ surprised Regina was just how easily they flowed back together having spent so long apart. Making love with Ruby was so natural that it was almost didn't feel like 28 years had passed since the last time it happened. Her body, it seemed, had as long a memory as her mind and having never forgotten Red's touch, it instantly became pliant under the fervent, instinctual touches of long, slender fingers.

With her system completely engulfed by Ruby's diligent ministrations, any remaining doubts Regina harbored over her course of action fled into the ether. Just as she had with Red, she felt safe enough with Ruby both physically and emotionally to let her walls down and surrender herself to the stimulating effects of unadulterated sensation, made only more intense by the elemental connection that still existed between herself and her younger lover.

It was hard for Regina to fathom that so little had changed in the way she felt with Red even though so much was different in both her life and her circumstances. In almost every way that counted, she was no longer the obsessive Queen who was responsible for casting the Curse that had taken Red away from her, yet in her heart that place that belonged to Red alone could still be found. Her love had not dimmed over time as she had once hoped it might. Through a year's worth of kindness, understanding, sympathy, encouragement, no small amount of stubbornness, and most of all, unconditional love, Red had earned a permanent place in Regina's life that even the most powerful Curse ever cast could not wipe away.

 _It's b_ _ecause_ _I belong_ _with her_ , Regina told herself, _for however long I have left to live,_ _and_ _I was a fool to ever resist_ _it_ _._

Breathing deeply, the latent, heady scent of sex filled her nostrils, eliciting an involuntary shudder. Like always, Red...or Ruby, rather, had reduced Regina to a bundle of quaking muscles and wanton moans, unable to do much but lay limply in Ruby's embrace while she came down from the soaring heights of ecstasy. Red always was an apt and bold lover, particularly once she moved past that initial stage of awkward shyness, so Regina was very pleased that attentive nature had carried over to this world. Whether as Red or as Ruby, the remarkable young woman seemed incapable of leaving her Queen unsatisfied, but then again, the way they fit together between the sheets was never the problem.

Fondly studying the slumbering form of her lover who was turned away towards the outer wall with the sheets draped low across her hips, Regina recalled that it was the messy emotions that arose out of evermore frequent encounters that had triggered her fight or flight response. There was a good reason for that, too.

Once she became Queen in her own right by freeing herself from Leopold's oppressive presence, she swore off all notions of love, believing herself incapable of ever truly feeling such a pure emotion again. After having endured the soul rending tragedy of Daniel's death and many oppressive years of unwanted contact with an old king who didn't love her, Regina had been even been loathe to consider ever having sex again. Yet being a young and healthy woman whose natural desires eventually returned with time, she had to compromise by making a point to never take a lover for longer than a month before discarding them for the next pretty thing to catch her fancy.

While her belief remained true that her heart was so significantly damaged she could not love someone in a romantic sense, Regina was still cognizant of the fact that however much she abhorred the idea, it was not impossible for her to get attached to a lover if they were kept around too long whether she wanted to or not. No matter how broken, the human heart could not help but form such attachments, an inescapable detail that she had come to appreciate as the reason her mother tore her own heart out. Cora would have rather lived without love than to give into the whims of heartfelt emotions, and the more Regina lived as the Queen, the more she saw the wisdom in her mother's actions.

But with Red, she had miscalculated not only her ability to resist forming attachment but also the influence such a simple girl as Red could exert over her. Just for a split second, Regina had taken her eyes off of her ultimate goal to exact vengeance on Snow White, and in that brief moment of distraction, she was ensnared by the incredible beauty and beguiled by the innocence in the green eyes of a girl she had every reason to hate. With one touch, Red slipped past the barriers that barred entry into her heart, taking up residence there as if she'd always belonged. By the time Regina realized what was happening, it was far too late to go back, so in the end it was her own overconfidence that wound up being the cause of her downfall.

With Red occupying her thoughts almost constantly, all too soon one month bled into two, which turned into six, and before she knew it, Regina had exclusively been with her werewolf lover for nearly a year and was feeling things she hadn't believed herself capable of feeling. Alarmed by how close she was to actually being in love with Red, she panicked and succumbed to the temptation of the Curse. And oh, how she regretted that, both then and now.

Reaching out her hand, Regina ran a finger down the smooth skin of Ruby's bare back, delighted in the way her paramour shivered against the touch even in her unconscious state. She had missed this, just lazing in bed with the woman she loved, content to relish their togetherness for its own sake. To be truthful, she had missed so much about Red in general. Regina had missed the way her lover smelled, missed the pleasantly feminine timbre of her voice and the soft fullness of her hair and how it looked so dark when juxtaposed with the paleness of her skin. And she had missed the feel of that silken skin, which had a unique texture and flavor that was a little too close to heaven for such a jaded person as herself to be given the privilege of enjoying.

Tasting Red's essence and smelling her earthy aroma in such intimate ways used to make Regina feel like a thief, as if every night she'd spent with Red was a night she was robbing someone who was far more worthy of the happiness they would find in such an extraordinary woman. But she could never help herself where Red was concerned, for even the most loathsome aspects of her character had been unwilling to part from a companion who came to embody the only available sanctuary in which she could hide from her inner demons. Somehow, by just being nearby, Red was able to provide a balm that calmed the monster inside of Regina, tamed it until it was relegated to simple background noise.

Under those circumstances, the hopeful, loving young woman Regina used to be managed to surface every now and then when the prison holding that old and nearly forgotten aspect of her being grew weak enough so that it could fight through the bars of its cage. Once free, it was able to affect her by prompting sentimental outpourings which could never have come from the hardened version of herself who so proudly defined her existence through coldness and cruelty. It was being under the influence of the kinder, gentler version of herself that had prompted her to create the necklace for Red. And now, with Ruby in her arms and the taste of her still lingering upon her lips, with Ruby's smell surrounding her like a blanket, Regina was reminded once again of the person she used to be.

As she often did after making love with Red, she felt such a sense peace with the world that all of her troubles melted away if just for a while, and she felt as if she could actually breathe. But now that feeling was being enhanced by a contentment and happiness that made Regina feel ready at last to move beyond the emotional stasis she'd dwelt in for so many years. While it might very well fade with the morning light, she was going to bask in the euphoria for however long it lasted.

"Mmm," Ruby hummed as Regina continued tracing a feather-light finger down her side from shoulder to hip. Flipping around to face Regina mid-hum, Ruby snuggled forward, tucking her head into Regina's chest as the older woman reached around to secure her in place. Splaying her fingers out on the small of Ruby's back, Regina pulled their bodies more tightly together. "Feels nice," Ruby sighed with immense satisfaction.

"Yes, it does," Regina murmured into Ruby's messy hair.

After inhaling deeply, she let the faded scent of Ruby's shampoo linger in her nostrils. Strawberries. Not her favorite fruit but she was adaptable in this case. So long as it meant Ruby was in her arms, she could put up with the smell of any manner of fruity shampoos the girl might choose. Strawberries, though, were quite palatable whether concerning their edibility or olfactory qualities, which was good because Regina knew Ruby favored them. Because of that predilection, Regina had considered making a strawberry pie for dessert, but ultimately decided against it as she'd been concerned the overture would be too obvious. In retrospect, however, when considering their current position it probably wouldn't have mattered at all.

With that thought, Regina was brought back to the reality that she had crossed a line she hadn't meant to. Tonight was supposed to have been a simple date and not a seduction. Despite the innuendo that might have suggested otherwise, it was never her intention to take advantage of Ruby in such a way. Rather, tonight was supposed to have been a simple romantic dinner that would facilitate Ruby getting acquainted with the Regina that Red already knew but to which Ruby was still a relative stranger. Somehow things just spiraled completely out of control. In her current state of thinking, Regina wasn't quite sure why she'd allowed things to go so far, but whatever the cause, it was too late to go back now and she wouldn't want to even if she could.

Steeling herself, she called Ruby's name. However much she appreciated the development, she felt obligated to clear the air immediately.

"Mmm?" was the muffled response. Ruby's warm breath ghosted across her chest, a sensation that caused an altogether different kind of warmth within.

"I'm sorry, Ruby."

Emitting a weak groan, Ruby lifted up her head, looking at Regina through confused and slightly blurry eyes. With tousled hair and a scratchy voice from her nap, she replied, "What for?"

Sighing, Regina brushed a wild section of hair out of Ruby's face. "I..." she faltered, not wanting to ruin the moment but also not wanting Ruby to get the wrong idea about what had just happened. "I need you to know that I didn't just invite you over to seduce you. I know I made some comments that might have hinted otherwise but I promise you that was just my aggressive and admittedly poor method of flirting. I had every intention of taking this slow. So, if I took advantage of you..."

Frowning, Ruby shook her head vehemently. "I don't feel that way at all, Regina. Quite the opposite. Where is this coming from?"

"I don't normally do this," Regina replied in answer, gesturing between their very naked bodies. Ruby's skin, in particular, seemed to be glowing under the light of the moon. It was an entrancing effect that reminded Regina of what lurked just beneath the extremely tantalizing layer of human flesh.

Ruby's face filled with hurt at the poor explanation. "What? Sleep around like I do?"

Regina cursed herself. "That's not what I'm saying," she then explained, sighing once more. "I just...I'm not...I don't want to be flippant about this, Ruby. I'm not just after you for sex. It wasn't my intention for things to go this far because I don't want you to feel like...I don't want to be like everyone else. I swore to you I wouldn't be and I failed on the first attempt."

"Oh, Regina," Ruby replied, her wounded expression fleeing in favor of a tender smile at Regina's stunted attempt at smoothing things over. "You didn't fail." Regina frowned out of reflex. "You didn't! You don't have to worry about me. I know you're nothing like the others, which is why I'm still here. You have to realize, normally I would have been dressed and out the door the second we were done. Yet I stayed. That should tell you something."

Breathing a breath of relief, Regina nodded and worried her lip. She glanced at her clock, noting it was almost 9:30 in the evening. They'd been at it for hours and then fell asleep tangled up together. Were it not for the fact that Regina remembered much longer pleasure sessions with Red in the past, she might have been tempted to crow internally as if it were some kind of personal record.

Returning her eyes to Ruby, she replied, "While that is certainly a relief, I don't want to pressure you in any way, so you're free to leave whenever you like without fear of judgment or hurt feelings. I'll be as patient with you from now on as you need me to be."

"God, you really are adorable," Ruby laughed, a soft, breathy sound that stirred up Regina's heart. "I'm not going anywhere. I stayed for a reason: I want to be here with you. I can't tell you how great it was to wake up surrounded by your smell, or how amazing it felt to burrow my nose into your skin and know that this is real, that I'm really here with you. I want to make a thousand more memories like that, of making love with you again and again and again. Hell, I don't think it's possible that I'll ever get tired of just touching you."

With an awestruck expression, Ruby trailed a finger down the valley between Regina's breasts, all the way down to just below her navel, leaving a trail of heated flesh in her wake. "Or of kissing you." Removing her finger, she gently cupped Regina's cheek and then leaned in to share a sweet kiss. When they parted, Ruby lingered, their lips still brushing together as her hair draped around Regina's face like a curtain. "I think I'd stay here forever if you'd let me."

The last words were spoken with such reverence that Regina almost gasped. Opening her mouth, she was about to reply but was stopped short by a growling sound. Ruby's face turned as red as her namesake when they both realized where the sound came from. And then it happened again.

"Oh, God," Ruby groaned, flopping rather dramatically over on her back and flinging her arm over her face. "I'm so sorry. Dammit! That's so embarrassing."

Unable to help herself, Regina laughed. Without knowing how loaded the moment was about to get, Ruby's stomach had intervened in a show of perfect timing, injecting much needed levity into a conversation that was getting a little too serious for a first...date, if that's even what it could be called. To Regina, it was so much more than a date, it was a reunion. What Ruby thought, however, she couldn't say.

"Nonsense," Regina replied, relegating her thoughts to later analysis. Propping up on one elbow, she gently pried Ruby's arm away from her face. When she was met by a mortified expression, she gave her blushing lover a smile. "Don't be embarrassed. There's no need." Ruby looked over at her, one brow raised, causing Regina to smirk. "Well, it's true. I did work you awfully hard, so I completely understand that your body needs replenishment."

Ruby huffed against a smile of her own, the corners of her lips turning up despite her unnecessary humiliation. "I suppose that's true. I did earn it, didn't I?" Bashfully gazing at Regina through her lashes, she then bit her lip with such charming diffidence that Regina almost sighed with affection. Almost. "Say, do you think our food is still warm? I mean, you did leave it in the oven..."

Swearing at the reminder, Regina threw back the covers and bolted out of bed, praying her kitchen was still intact. After retrieving her robe she made her way downstairs with such speed that the sound of her bare feet slapping on hardwood echoed through the house. Much to her relief, when she arrived in the kitchen, everything was still in place and their dinner was, in fact, still being kept warm in the oven. While she waited for Ruby, she went about removing it.

A few seconds later, Ruby ambled down, dressed only in her panties and one of Regina's blue button up blouses (the one she'd left hanging on her bathroom door from where she'd changed quickly after work). The sleeves of the shirt were rolled up to the elbows and only fastened by the middle buttons, leaving a gap between the sections that exposed plenty of creamy skin. The way the fine fabric hugged Ruby's svelte frame and clung to her hips set Regina's heart racing, and that was without mentioning the twin expanses of oh-so-delectable flesh jutting out from beneath the indecently high hem. Ruby's legs were truly a miracle of nature, long and lean and strong and smooth and just so damn enticing that Regina could barely contain herself from touching them when Ruby sidled over.

"Is that for me?" Ruby asked, indicating to the pan of lasagna Regina was holding with a gloved hand.

Drawing her eyes away from Ruby's thighs, Regina found her lover wearing a smug grin. Great. Now that Ruby knew of her preference for a specific pair of ridiculously fine legs, there would be even more short-shorts and mini-skirts in her future work wardrobe. It was going to be difficult for Regina to keep her reactions hidden from Granny with Ruby flaunting herself like that, for however well-aged the formidable woman was, Granny's senses were still sharp. In order to deflect suspicion, Regina was just going to have to keep things professional, no matter how much she wanted to leer at Ruby while she would no doubt for her benefit very deliberately bend over tables while taking customer orders. The girl was a shameless tease but then again that was half the fun.

"Why, of course," Regina replied to Ruby's question, and then proceeded to take the hot pan over to the counter, where she it down on a rectangular slab of marble. After fetching their plates, she then proceeded to set them upon her prep table, after which she retrieved two stools from her utility room. Next, she went about serving them both generous portions of lasagna, making sure to put more on Ruby's plate than on her own. Regina still remembered Red's extremely healthy appetite.

In the year they spent together in the Enchanted Forest, Red became a frequent visitor to the Dark Palace, during which they shared many meals together. Whether dining privately in the Queen's chambers or more publicly in the castle's large, opulent dining room, Regina had never personally witnessed anyone, even the burliest of her Black Guard, out-eat Red when the werewolf had done any kind of strenuous activity. It always mystified her how a person so slim could fit that much food into their body and still move around afterward, but Red did it on a regular basis.

Once Regina had replaced the pan on the marble, she indicated toward the table. "We can sit in here and eat if that's alright."

"That's perfect," Ruby smiled, obediently sitting and then waiting for Regina to join her before digging in. "Sweet Jesus!" she exclaimed after the first bite. "This is the best lasagna I've ever tasted." Realizing what she'd implied, Ruby's eyes grew wide. "Please don't tell Granny I said that."

Chuckling, Regina wiped her mouth with her napkin before replying. "It's the red pepper flakes I put in it. Gives it a little extra kick. And don't worry, dear, I won't tattle on you. This can be our little secret." She winked causing Ruby to blush.

After that, the women settled into a comfortable silence, sharing smiles and fond glances while they ate. Well, Regina ate, Ruby practically inhaled her portion, and once she had scraped what remained of the lasagna from the plate, she looked up at Regina with abashed yet also silently pleading eyes.

"Have all you want," Regina said, her eyes crinkling with delight at the unasked question. Ruby wasted no time in helping herself to more lasagna.

Settling in to watch her lover, Regina was struck by a bout of nostalgia. This was something else she'd missed, the comfortable companionship of sharing a meal with Red. Used to the stilted, overly structured atmosphere of high society functions, eating with Red was a welcome change of pace. Things were just natural and easy, flowing like a meandering stream moving gently along its naturally carved path. Unlike with formal meals, there was no pretense or strained exchanges for Regina to maneuver through.

Likewise, the conversations were always pleasant and the silences never suffocating. With Red, she felt no pressure to discuss topics that interested the nobility, such as politics, philosophy, religion, and warfare, and while those things were interesting to talk about to a point, the way people of high birth pompously argued and nitpicked about them made the subjects tiresome at times. It wasn't as if those things didn't come up with Red, either, it was just when they did, it was not forced and always stimulating.

Now, Red was certainly an opinionated woman in her own right but one of the things most admirable about her was that she did not try to change Regina by being obnoxious or stubborn about her views. Instead, Red listened carefully and respectfully when Regina spoke and did not dismiss Regina's own ideals out of hand even though she knew some of those ideals were responsible for her best friend's life being in nearly constant peril. And as with all couples, sometimes they agreed on things and sometimes they didn't, but whenever they didn't, their disagreements were never violent or contentious. In matters of debate, Red seemed to possess a patience and poise that belied her upbringing, which earned her a great deal of respect in Regina's eyes.

But even though Red always tried to hide her more peasant manners, she never seemed to be able to for long, particularly when she was famished and ate in the same manner in which she lived as the wolf, with reckless abandon. At first, if Regina was being totally honest, the behavior had disgusted her. The semi-restrained way Red attacked her food on any normal day was tolerable, but on the first occasion that she was in desperate need of energy after an all-night run, she practically inhaled her meal. Such poor manners ran counter to everything Regina had been taught as a child. Her mother had demanded she eat like a properly lady and enforced those demands with iron glares, harsh words, and painful strikes from a ruler so that it became deeply ingrained behavior. As such, to say Regina was initially offended by the lack of dining etiquette would be understating things.

But in a rare bout of self-control, instead of speaking out and rudely correcting Red, she decided to observe her young lover more closely. Subconsciously, she supposed, she'd recognized something worth noticing in the relatively uncouth way Red ate and it wasn't until a few weeks later that she finally began to make sense of what that was. In watching Red, it had seemed to Regina like the girl half expected her meal to run away from her or as if she was unsure of whether or not it would be her last, which told Regina far more than she'd cared to know about the past hardships Red had endured.

In observing Red over time, she had come to the conclusion (and quite accurately as she had found out later on from Red's own admission) that her lover was a young woman who was tragically familiar with the gnawing pangs of hunger, the painful uncertainty of where her next meal would be coming from, and the intense frustrations of a potential meal getting away because of a failed trap or a bad arrow shot or an accidental noise that spooked the animal off. Sure, she'd told Regina that things got better in her life after her grandmother's industry finally began to pay off, and even more so after moving into the castle with Snow, but those kinds of hard-learned habits did not just disappear. So while Red had been careful to smooth away the rough edges of her difficult upbringing with practice, for anyone who cared to look, all the evidence was there to indicate her familiarity with extreme hunger.

That revelation stung Regina's heart more than she cared to admit. It hurt her to imagine a very young Red, startlingly frail and starving, having to go to bed hungry and feeling hopeless in a way that no child should. It was that comprehension of how hard Red's life had been that gave Regina a new perspective on her own.

Despite her mother's austerity, Regina realized that her childhood had been spent in relative comfort. She'd never wanted for anything material, had more than her fill of food, and been privileged to enjoy quite a few delicacies that even those among the upper nobility did not have access to, and it was all because she had been fortunate enough to be born to the son of a king. Red did not have those luxuries. Yet, even so, the incredibly resilient girl retained her virtue, kindness, and good-natured demeanor, while on the other hand, Regina crumbled after her first true test and turned to evil without a second thought. It was in becoming aware of that contrast in choices that Regina felt legitimate shame for the first time in a long time.

Now, though, watching Ruby devour her meal just made her feel happy, if only for the fact that it was clear Red was in there somewhere, hidden inside the cursed personality of Ruby Lucas. As if aware that she was with Regina once again, she seemed to be coming out at all the right moments to make her lover soften, to return Regina to the woman she'd just started to become when the Curse took effect. _Well_ , Regina thought to herself, _it's working._ It was funny how such a simple thing as watching a person eat could have such a profound effect.

"What?" Ruby then asked around a mouthful of food, having felt Regina's eyes on her. She winced at the clear break in polite table manners and swallowed down her food. Blushing yet again, she muttered, "Sorry." But she had nothing to be sorry for and Regina told her so.

Once done eating, Red sighed and leaned back in her chair and rubbed her belly with a lazy smile. For a moment, she sat there unmoving as if hypnotize, and Regina might have thought something wrong except for the way her eyes swept appreciatively over Regina's features. But suddenly the trace was broken by an enormous yawn from Red, her jaw popping due to the power of it.

"Wow," she said after, "guess you really did wear me out."

"In a good way, though," Regina replied, eyes twinkling.

Ruby grinned. "The best way."

After that, Regina insisted that Ruby go back to bed. Realizing the time, Ruby then inquired as to whether or not she should leave, to which Regina insisted that she stay a while longer. While it was true that Henry was due back home sometime around eleven, Regina was willing to bet he would be so tired that she would need to make him go straight to bed, which meant that afterward, she could return to her room for a blissfully full night of sleeping next to Ruby.

Knowing that Ruby would question the decision, Regina preemptively explained her reasoning, adding to it that for one, she didn't want Ruby out driving so late, but most importantly, she just wanted Ruby there with her. She didn't elaborate beyond that, but it had been beyond nice to wake up with someone she cared so deeply for in her bed, and it was even more wonderful that it was Ruby. In fact, had it been feasibly appropriate, Regina would have liked nothing more than to accommodate Ruby's earlier comment for her to never leave. However, Regina knew that kind of progression was going to take time.

With 28 years of longing already behind her, she was ready to make that step but Ruby was not, no matter what she said in a moment where emotions were running high and superseding rationality. Regina didn't think it would take long for Ruby to get there, but until she was, she was going to have to exercise patience, and while patience was something Regina still struggled with at times, it was going to be required if she didn't want to scare Ruby off by being too pushy or quick to jump the gun. Still, she figured that because one night was not an invitation to move in, it would be okay. She just couldn't allow it to become a habit until Ruby was much more invested in the relationship.

In any case, the argument worked, and with Ruby's agreement secured, Regina led them both back upstairs. Not bothering to change from their impromptu pajamas, they climbed into bed together. Once they were both under the covers, Regina curled up behind Ruby, wanting nothing more than to settle in for the night. Until her son came home and she got him in bed, though, she would have to stay away. But there was still an hour or so to go before then.

"I'm so glad you came," Regina told Ruby as she linked their fingers together.

"Me, too," Ruby replied, and then glanced back at Regina with bleary eyes that were somehow still illuminated with affection. "I've been waiting a long time for this." Giving a contented sigh, she then laid her head on the pillow. Her eyes fluttered a few times before sliding shut.

"So have I, darling," Regina whispered, leaning over to nuzzle her cheek Ruby's. She felt Ruby's respondent smile. "But it was worth the wait."

Her eyes remaining closed, Ruby made a happy sound that echoed what Regina was feeling inside. "I'm glad." Silence descended for a moment, after which Regina withdrew to rest her head next to Ruby's. But then suddenly Ruby spoke once more. "Hey, Regina?"

"Yes, dear?"

"What time does Henry usually get up on Sunday morning?"

A slight pout of confusion on her face, Regina raised her head to rest it over Ruby's shoulder, looking down at her heavy lidded lover. "He's up by 7:30 normally. Why?"

"I tend to wake up on my own by 5:30," she answered around a large yawn, "but if it's okay, can you make sure I'm up by then? I want to leave before Henry's up so you don't have to answer any awkward questions."

Regina frowned. "There's no need for that, Ruby. I can deal with my son. I think he'll be fine. It won't be the first time someone has stayed the night here, after all." Graham had on several occasions and Henry had never made much of a fuss about it, chalking it up to 'adult stuff' and going about his morning.

Craning her head up, Ruby gave Regina a grateful smile. "I know that, and while I appreciate the offer, I need to get a head start home to get ready for work anyways. Sunday mornings are super busy at the diner. And besides, I know you'll need to get up to fix breakfast and stuff."

Regina heard the unspoken reason behind Ruby's desire to leave early. While it was one thing to sleep over, it was another to be confronted by the reality of Regina's 10 year old son finding out what had transpired between them. If Henry found out this early, he might ask questions of Ruby she was not yet prepared to answer or put pressure on her she was not yet willing to bear. It wasn't that Ruby didn't want to stay, she just wasn't ready for the implications of hanging around to eat breakfast with the family.

 _Patience_ , Regina reminded herself while kissing Ruby's shoulder. She then answered audibly, "I completely understand. I will make sure you're up and at 'em by 5:30. Meanwhile, settle in and relax. I'll lay here with you until Henry gets home."

With a sleepy smile, Ruby nodded and then snuggled back further into her position spooned up against Regina. "'Kay. Goodnight, Regina."

Brushing a strand of hair over her lover's ear, Regina leaned in to place one last kiss on her cheek before whispering in her ear, "Goodnight, my dear."

Five minutes later, Ruby was sound asleep. Laying there quietly, Regina took time to just listen to the reassuring sounds of Ruby's breathing. It was a strangely pleasing that such a little thing could bring her so much comfort. She supposed it was because listening to Ruby's steady breathing reminded her of how lucky she was that Red was alive and well and where she belonged once more, and while the Curse had given Regina many benefits, nothing she was given could equal the worth that.

Still, it was going to be hard to sleep alone tomorrow with Ruby gone but she reminded herself it was not forever. Soon enough it would be time to make things more permanent, for once Ruby was ready, Regina wasn't going to allow any more time to go to waste. She'd done quite enough of that already.

In the end, it was five till eleven when Regina heard the sound of Emma's Volkswagen pull into the driveway, so she carefully arose so as not to disturb Ruby and then made her way downstairs to greet her son. That Emma had managed to be five minutes earlier than the agreed upon time was a surprise since Emma was not well known for being a punctual person. Having honestly expected the woman at least a few minutes late, Regina found herself in the unusual position of feeling a measure of respect for the woman who she once believed had come to Storybrooke just to turn her life upside down. Emma seemed determined to make things work, though, and so long as that remained the case, Regina was willing to do the same.

She hadn't been waiting in the foyer for more than a minute when Henry burst through the front door. The second he caught sight of his mother, he smiled at her in a way he hadn't in a very long time, and it made Regina feel so amazingly euphoric that she didn't complain once as he was chatted away about his awesome day with Emma. Though visibly fighting against exhaustion, he remained buoyant as they made their way into the living room where they sat together on the sofa while her son talked a mile a minute and Regina patiently listened.

Though she really was not interested in learning about how good of a bowler Emma was or how many times Emma had seen Star Wars, she endured the stories all the same, intently taking in every detail Henry relayed like a good mother should. Not wanting her son to pick up on her admittedly petty continued dislike of his birth mother, she even went so far as to insert questions or comments where appropriate. But eventually, as she knew would happen, Henry ran out of steam some time around midnight, and after watching Henry yawn so hard tears came to his eyes, Regina ended the conversation by expressing her genuine contentment at his happiness. After that, she made him go to bed

As if too tired to protest, Henry allowed his mother to usher him upstairs, where she went about putting his things away while he brushed his teeth and washed his face. Once that was done, Regina saw her son to bed, tucked him in and kissed him goodnight. He was out moments later with a smile on his face.

For several minutes, Regina lingered in the doorway to watch him, surprisingly happy just because he was happy. Again she was struck by the possibility that she had actually made the right decision, for just down the hallway not twenty feet away, the woman she loved was sound asleep in her bed and her son was happy once again. That night, she realized, something wonderful had happened, and the proof was in the fact that the two people she loved the most were under one roof for the first time. It was, she thought, as it was supposed to be and quite frankly how she _always_ wanted it to be.

 _Patience_ , _it will come soon enough,_ she reminded herself once more as she closed the door to Henry's bedroom and then made her way back to her own.

When she stepped next to the bed a few moments later, she stopped to take the sight of Ruby still sleeping soundly just as she was when Regina had left her. And as her heart swelled up to the point it was overflowing with emotion, she slid back into bed and resumed her position behind her lover's pliant body. After snuggling in close, Ruby woke just enough to hum with pleasure and then press her body back against Regina's in order to bring them as close together as was as humanly possible. The second Ruby was settled in Regina's embrace, she gave a contented little sigh and was almost instantly back asleep.

With a soft smile on her face, Regina allowed her eyes to slide shut and it wasn't long after that the welcoming arms of slumber opened for her. When she finally succumbed to the drag of that welcoming peace, it was with the knowledge that for once in her life, she was truly happy.


	6. Red Bra Reassurances

**Standard Disclaimer** : The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately and I will correct them.

 **Chapter 6** – Red Bra Reassurances

5 Months Later

Picking up her phone, Regina called Granny's Diner for the fifth time in the past ten minutes only to receive yet another busy signal. It was 1 pm on a Wednesday, which was the time of day she dedicated to calling Ruby, her lover of going on 5 months now. Usually she got through within her first couple of tries even though there was still a bit of a lunch rush going on, so in all likelihood the Diner was extremely busy with both in-house customers and call-in orders for her calls to go so long unanswered.

To tell the truth, Regina was beginning to get annoyed. Aside from her main reason for calling, she needed to hear Ruby's voice if only for a few sparse minutes. Enduring such a long morning of seemingly endless meetings filled to the brim with the tedious droning of insipid politicians made for a broody Mayor, but just talking to Ruby would be enough to brighten her day, no matter how long the conversation lasted.

There was something indescribable about the quality of Ruby's voice, something that calmed Regina as though it was an audible transmission of soothing peace, assuaging the angry temper that always lurked just beneath the surface of her mind. Ruby was a balm more potent than a thousand hours spent watching Snow wallow in misery had ever proven to be, and all it took was one laugh or one affectionate endearment from her to make Regina's troubles flee away, to afford her a precious moment of serenity in an otherwise hectic day.

It was such a simple thing to talk to someone, but when that someone was an integral part of life for a person, hearing their voice not only connected with the auditory portions of the brain but with that mysterious part of a human being that touched everything at once: the physical, the mental, the emotional, and even the spiritual. That was what the sound of Ruby's voice did for Regina. No one besides Henry had ever produced such an effect on her so as to overshadow her vendetta, which was more than a little disconcerting considering how much time and energy she had devoted to it.

Mostly these days, Regina hardly ever thought of Snow anymore. She hadn't really been aware of it, either. It snuck up on her all at once when one day, she woke up and realized she had gone an entire day without caring what Snow was doing, without needing to know that she was suffering and that her happiness was still as far away as it was the day before. Those concerns had suddenly become petty and unimportant when at long last she was getting everything she had ever wanted, for not only was her son was growing close to her again, but Ruby was around more and more often to shine her uniquely bright light into those dark and foreboding corners of Regina's psyche. There was really no room for revenge to exist in her life anymore. Happiness was pushing it out one day at a time, relegating it to the background and filling the subsequent void with a contentment that surpassed her greatest expectations.

That this had happened at all was an affirmation of her risky decision to set her pride aside that day in the diner 5 months ago. That day, her fear of losing Red to Emma Swan had necessitated that she act hastily, but what if she hadn't made that decision? Would she be so happy in the present? The answer to Regina was clear: no. Instead, in all likelihood she would be miserable because Ruby would be with Emma right now and Henry would feel as far away from her as ever before. Sometimes taking risks wound up biting a person in the ass, but sometimes...every now and then, putting everything on the line to take a chance that equally fills the heart with hope and fear can lead to a life of wonder. That was the life Regina was living at present.

It was hard sometimes to reconcile the fact that five whole months had passed since her _incredibly_ memorable first date with Ruby. During the previous years under the Curse, Regina had spent much of her time feeling like she was mired in a river of molasses and unable to make any noticeable progress, or as if she were floating on slow-moving waves through an endless ocean, adrift on the currents though barely aware of their presence beneath her: moving but so slowly as to barely be aware it. The Dark Curse, it turned out, was ironical in the sense that it provided satisfaction to her through proving her a front row seat to her the suffering of her enemies, but just as it gave, it took, and without having even noticed, she had been caught in its web just the same as everyone else. The only difference was that her suffering took the forms of loneliness, regret, boredom, and an impending malaise that threatened to sap her willpower at every turn.

With the passage of days and weeks seeming so interminable, Regina had to resort to desperate measures to keep herself occupied, such as by learning skills she'd always neglected or by picking up hobbies that outside of the Curse would have seemed frivolous. With so much spare time on her hands, she'd needed outlets for her energy, lest her inactivity drive her into depression. She'd first turned to reading, which proved effective for a time to occupy her mind.

The new world she had transported the Enchanted Forest into had a selection of works from which to read that would dwarf the most impressive of collections back home. Even Rumplestiltskin's vast library could not boast the variety of subjects and styles that authors in this world wrote about. Regina especially enjoyed what people here deemed the classics, such a Shakespeare, Homer, and Dickens, though she also dabbled in historical nonfiction and political works. One of her guiltier pleasures was reading Robert Lewis Stephenson, Hans Christian Andersen, and the Grimm Brothers compilation of fairy tales, if only to laugh at the absurdities of their versions of the truth. And lastly, in order to be a more effective mayor, she had even resorted to reading assorted books of law in order to prop up her knowledge beyond what the Curse had provided for her.

But as with all things done over long periods of time, she grew tired of endless reading, for while it occupied her mind, her body lacked proper stimulation. To that end, she'd added more active pursuits to her repertoire such as gardening, cooking and baking, and had even learned to play the piano. However, none of her endeavors changed the way reality seemed to languish in a sort of suspended state of animation. Being the only person in a town of nearly two thousand inhabitants aware of the passage of time left for a lonely and static experience that tended to eventually suck the color out of everything. But now time appeared to be flowing in earnest once again, which presented a dramatic change from the status quo. It all started when Emma came to town.

Within hours of Emma's arrival, things began happening in a more precipitous way almost as if the dam of the curse that once held back time was losing its efficacy and had sprung a leak that Regina was unable to plug. But since breaking her long fast from Red, where once trickles slipped past the formerly impenetrable barrier, streams now flowed, which meant it was only a matter of time before those streams turned into torrential rivers. After that, all that would remain was for the dam to turn loose entirely. The curse, she realized, would soon be coming to an end, no matter what she did to prevent it.

The inevitability of that reality scared Regina more than she cared to admit, and for a variety of reasons, one of the foremost of which was the angry horde that would turn up at her door after their initial jubilation at being reunited with loved ones faded. When consciousness finally crashed down upon the citizens of Storybrooke as to just where they were and who was responsible for both sending them there and their decades long torment, there would be little that could stop them from seeking immediate recompense. It was likely that within hours of the Curse breaking a mob would turn up at her door either to demand her surrender or to take her by force.

The only silver lining to that likelihood was that with the end of the Curse, Regina assumed magic would return to her, so while a mob of frothing citizens bent on vengeance was always cause for alarm, she at least figured she could protect herself and those she loved. If need be, she could even teleport them all out of danger, and while she would be miserably sad over abandoning the life she'd built in this world, at least Henry and Ruby would be safe. But even more than the prospect of dying, Regina most feared the reactions of those two people, the two people closest to her heart and most capable of truly hurting her.

Henry, Regina thought, would have a predictable reaction. Because he already believed in the Curse and that she was the Evil Queen, that it broke and returned the people of Storybrooke to the Enchanted Forest selves would only vindicate his wrongly ignored assertions. When Henry realized the lengths she had gone to not only to cast the Curse in the first place but also to protect it as well, there was only one possible outcome she could foresee: she was going to lose her son. No doubt that would be devastating, but sadly enough the more she thought about it the more she realized she had been subconsciously preparing herself for that very moment since Emma Swan arrived in Storybrooke. And even though there was no use denying how heartbreaking it would be to witness Henry looking at her in the contemptuous way everyone else would, there was at least a sliver of hope that he wouldn't completely discard the good times he'd had with her over the 10 years she raised him or of these past 5 months in particular, which had been the best between them since he was very little.

Almost as a consequence of finally let her walls down for Ruby, Regina's relationship with her son had begun to improve dramatically. As his mother loosened up, Henry actually started to enjoy doing things with her again because, as he put it, she'd finally pulled her stick out of the mud. He was right. She had been undeniably happier of late, less caustic and more free with her smiles and laughs, and much less prone to the vicious mood swings that typified her behavior since the Savior came to town. And that, she knew, was mainly Ruby's doing, of which Henry only had a vague awareness and thus why she was currently trying to reach Ruby on the phone. Tonight, Regina planned to rectify her son's ignorance on the matter of the woman who had stolen back the heart that already rightfully belonged to her.

Henry being in the dark was not really his fault at all, however. It wasn't as if he was being willfully ignorant, but more that Regina had kept the true nature of her relationship with Ruby a secret from him. Because of Ruby's skittish behavior when she slept over that first night, Regina had determined to slowly but surely introducing her lover into her sons life on a more regular basis than being an impromptu babysitter. She had accomplished this mainly through weekly dinners to which Ruby was invited, attending under the guise of being Regina's friend when in reality Regina was just warming both of the people she loved up to being around one another on a more permanent basis. For the most part, Henry seemed to accept the reasoning but Regina could tell he detected a subtext that he did not have access to and which she was not yet ready to clarify. Whether he was being admirably considerate or biding his time to confront her, Regina didn't know but she was thankful nonetheless that he held his peace.

And so, over the course of the last few months, Henry had surpassed Regina's expectations, for though she had figured he would acclimate to Ruby rather slowly, on the contrary, the two soon grew close enough that Regina was now confident that it was time for him to know the truth, a decision which had been reinforced by his unsubtle hints.

Sometimes out of the blue, Henry would suggest in a joking way that with as much time as she was spending at their house, Ruby ought to just come live with them. The hinting did not occur often but it happened enough that Regina began to wonder whether or not he knew more than he was letting on. Henry had always been precocious, so she would not be terribly surprised if he had figured things out on his own, yet that did not mean she was excused from the responsibility of being openly honest with her son. As his mother, she owed it him.

With that in mind, she decided that tonight was the night for honesty. The only thing she needed to happen now was for Ruby to accept her invitation to dinner.

Deciding to give it one more go, she dialed the number she knew by heart and waited as the phone rang 4 times. Sighing, she was about to replace the receiver in its cradle when the call connected.

"Granny's Diner," a very welcome and very familiar voice answered, "this is Ruby. How can I help you?"

Smiling as always at the sound of Ruby's voice, Regina took a moment to let it permeate her being. Just as it always did, the soothing tone settled in her chest, banishing her anxiety and frustration. With a deep sigh, she relaxed into her chair and replied, "For starters, you can be to my house for dinner by 6 pm sharp."

"Regina? Hey!" Ruby responded in a slightly affected way. Quite probably, Regina thought, she had been taken aback by the unexpected dinner invitation. Ruby then took a deep breath that Regina heard through the phone and when she next spoke her voice sounded distinctly nervous. "Not that I'm not glad to hear from you, but…did I forget something? A, it's not Friday, and B, I thought Henry was with you tonight."

Regina nodded even though she knew Ruby couldn't see her. "He is. Thus my invitation."

A space of silence ensued during which Regina fiddled with the phone cord, twirling it about her fingers and then unwinding it. She repeated this process twice before Ruby responded.

"I don't understand."

Regina hummed invitingly. "Then I guess you'll just have to come by tonight and find out."

"Alright," Ruby sighed with a longsuffering quality. "I suppose I can reshuffle my plans around."

Frowning, Regina gave a slighted harrumph. "Well, I wouldn't want to inconvenience you. If you've made other plans..."

"No, no," Ruby interjected, "it's nothing major. Nothing that can't be done another night. You know I'll take any time I can get with you."

Regina relaxed her head back against the headrest with an affected smile. Though she never said so, it was always nice for her to hear such affirmations of how much Ruby was invested in their relationship.

"I know, dear," she then replied. "That's one of the things I'm hoping to set right tonight."

When Ruby let out a curious sound, Regina could almost see her expressive eyes narrowing. "So mysterious." There was an exaggerated sense of interest in her tone. "Care to give me any hints?"

Regina chuckled at the playful tone of Ruby's request, responding in kind. "As I said, you'll just have to come find out. Can I count on you to be there?"

"You absolutely can," Ruby enthusiastically answered, smiling widely now judging by the inflection in her voice. "Any particular dress code?"

That was a standard question for Ruby on their dates. Most of the time Ruby seemed content to let Regina set the pace and dictate the terms of their dates, though there were times Regina wished she would be a bit more assertive. Though Regina was a person who very much liked being in charge, she'd asked Ruby about three weeks ago why she hardly ever suggested activities for their dates. The reply she received absolutely floored her.

Ruby had said that before dating Regina, she was usually the instigator in her relationships, so she actually liked the change of pace. And what's more, she went on to say, she felt safe enough with Regina to trust that she understood her and knew what she would enjoy and what she wouldn't. The implicit message was that Ruby trusted Regina not only with her body but with her heart as well. It was the first time that Regina wasn't listening for Red in Ruby's voice but was actually hearing what Ruby was saying for her own sake, and doing so made Regina aware of something critically important that she hadn't anticipated at all.

For 28 years, she had never stopped loving Red, but to her delight and horror, she realized she was falling in love with Ruby, too. It had taken that unspoken declaration for her to realize it. For whatever reason, she had never really stopped to consider the possibility that she might develop feelings for Ruby that were separate for what she felt for Red, but that's exactly what had happened, and once again, she was rendered speechless by the unintended consequences of the Curse.

Thinking back after that revelation, it was clear she had been wrong about a great many things.

Because of the way the Curse worked she had not only dismissed the possibility that she might develop feelings for Ruby Lucas, Red's cursed persona, but she also didn't believe it possible for Ruby to entertain true feelings for her. It was a funny thing, the Dark Curse, in that it was more than a bit diabolically ironic in nature, which incidentally was one of the reasons Regina had loved it so much. In a very metaphorical manner, it turned things upside down, including people and their behaviors.

Most people tended to think that their core personality could never be changed, which was actually true, and what made the curse especially delicious. The so-called heroes in the Enchanted Forest always thought of themselves as unflappable paragons of virtue that were above such petty emotions as hatred, bigotry, vengeance, and unforgiveness, so to suggest that it was possible to curse them into behaving against their true natures was inconceivable to them. Now, to their credit, most of them irrefutably conducted themselves as if absent of character flaws, particularly Snow White and her beloved Pretender Prince, but had that truly been the case, the curse could not have worked.

What made the Dark Curse so insidious, so wickedly wonderful, was that it did not transplant personalities but rather unleashed them. Those heroes who extolled themselves to be kind became cruel because deep down inside they harbored a secret malice that they were able to contain so long as they were in control of themselves. Similarly, the gentle found their inner beast unleashed, the patient found themselves being as recklessly impulsive as their subconscious had always craved to be, and the virtuous found themselves behaving as though unyieldingly depraved. All of these heinous attributes were not constructs of the curse but aspects of that person's character which they kept chained under lock and key lest those they care for discover their secret ugliness. This rather delicious nature of the curse made for what Regina liked to refer to as a grand unveiling of the hypocrites, an ultimate spectacle of the sordid depths of human nature, and it was all for her singular pleasure. That is why she loved the Curse so much.

But considering those principles, she'd thought Red's cursed personality would loathe her at the very least. Despite Red being her lover, Regina had never been in doubt that at least some part of the girl harbored hatred and resentment for her. After all, she was the woman who existed to destroy Red's best friend and because of whom Red had to live a life on the run. Even during their year long affair in the Enchanted Forest, Regina had still exercised her cruelty frequently enough that Red witnessed it from time to time. Whenever that happened, she would invariably be greeted by disapproving scowls from her lover. Red never did approve of her darker tendencies.

Yet, to her great surprise, the first time she entered Granny's Diner, she was not met by a disapproving or judgmental glare but rather by a genuine smile so wide and beautiful that it seemed as if Ruby was genuinely glad to see her. However, instead of bringing her comfort as it should have, it only increased her misery, for such treatment proved once and for all that Red had truly loved Regina and much more than she thought was possible. That the curse could not modify those feelings or subvert them in any way suggested that Red's love may have even been of the true variety, and when faced with that possibility, Regina had fled the Diner not to return until a month passed because she was incapable of bearing to look at Ruby knowing the truth of what she had given up. She had lost True Love once, so to face that she'd lost it a second time by her own hand was more than she could stand.

It was only because of the rumors that soon started concerning Ruby's promiscuity that she was able to move on with life at all. Unable to deal with even the thought of another hand touching the body that belonged to her, she shut herself off emotionally. Of all the people she'd ever met, Red had been the most above reproach and the least deserving of the injustices of the Curse, which is why Regina had taken great pains to spare her. Yet when Ruby confirmed the validity of the rumors on their very first date, Regina realized that the Curse had only failed where Red was concerned and it was only in the last few weeks that she began to feel secure enough in their relationship to actually contemplate why that was.

Every other construct of the curse had obeyed her will to a tee except for keeping Emma Swan out of Storybrooke and providing a comfortable and happy life for Red. Somehow in those two things the Curse had directly disobeyed her. As far as Emma was concerned, Regina could understand why the magical barrier that sealed the town had not performed as advertised. It had been Henry, after all, that sought Emma out and brought her to town, and because he was born in this world, he was not subject to the power of the Curse. Thus, the barrier did not prevent him from leaving or returning. But what Regina could not make sense of was why her sincere desire that Red be happy was somehow turned on its head in such an awful way as it was.

For a while, she'd actually considered the possibility that the Curse may have been constructed to be semi-sentient for flexibility's sake and that it had purposely warped her will for Red as a punishment for her error. The notion was so absurd she all but dismissed it out of hand. Magic could do many things but it could not create life from nothing. When babies like Emma were conceived out of True Love, it was more like the conception was guided along by magic rather than a human being actually being created magically. Magic only took what was already living there and worked with it, enhanced it, blessed it as it were. But it could not give true life to that which was previously inanimate. At best, those things were reflections of the magicians who created them, obeying simplified codes of standards to which their creators adhered.

With that possibility eliminated, Regina was left with few alternatives, all but one of which she dismissed as implausible. As such, she had a pretty good idea of what, or more aptly who, was responsible for Red's miseries and his name was Rumplestiltskin.

It wasn't long after she and Ruby started seeing each other that the erstwhile Mr. Gold all but bluntly confirmed that his memories had returned and his first order of business after that was to rub Ruby's sordid affairs in her face. After that meeting in the Sheriff's station, Regina had gone home enraged. It was only Ruby's incessant pleading over the phone that calmed her rampaging fury and kept her from doing something stupid. But even so, Regina had not forgotten those heavy-handed implications, and one thing was for certain: if magic ever returned, she was going to settle the score with that imp on Red's behalf. Until then, however, she was just glad she was able to restore Red to some measure of her former self.

Thankfully, over the past 5 months Ruby's curse-constructed wildness had tempered to almost negligible levels, and with every day that passed, she was less and less Ruby and more and more Red. Even though that was a relief to Regina, it also meant that the day was drawing ever more near in which the Curse would finally break and when it did, she was going to have to answer for her crimes not only to the people of Storybrooke but to Red as well. But before that happened, she _had_ to make sure that Ruby understood just how much she meant to her.

"Hello?" Ruby spoke up, breaking Regina's contemplations.

Sighing, Regina apologized. "I got lost in thought. Dress casually. It'll just be a simple and relaxed affair for family members only."

"Family?" Ruby echoed, her voice wavering with emotion at the implication that she was included in that category.

"Why, of course," Regina emphatically confirmed, wanting Ruby to know she hadn't misspoken but saving elaboration for later. "So, I'll see you tonight?"

"Sure," Ruby breathed into the speaker, clearly still reeling. "I mean, yes! I can't wait."

There was a reason Regina had worded her invitation in the way that she did, for to her, Ruby was already a member of her family and it was high past time for it to be made official. Tonight, she planned on doing two things which would accomplish that objective. Firstly, she was going to reveal their relationship to her son and secondly, she was going to ask Ruby to move into the mansion. Both were enormously important steps in their relationship, one Regina would normally have not been so quick to take but for her impatience to forge a deeper commitment with Ruby.

The urge to move forward was not new, though it had become more prevalent as time wore on. With the curse poised to be broken at any moment, Regina recognized that there was not much time left to waste. It was of the utmost importance then that she utilize what time she had left to show Red that she was not the same woman who had chosen revenge over love, that she was willing to give everything up if only to be with her. She only hoped the gesture would not be too much too soon for either Ruby or Henry to deal with.

Considering her son's aforementioned hints, she didn't think he would object, but she could never be completely sure, which was why she was going to talk to him first before mentioning anything to Ruby. Only with Henry's approval would she make such a decision that was bound to have a profound impact on his life. Though she was fairly certain Henry would approve of Ruby living with them, she was not nearly so confident as far as Ruby went.

While it was entirely possible that Ruby might be ecstatic, it was also possible that she would bolt. How she reacted to Regina's proposal hinged on which aspect of Ruby was most in control. Over the past several months, Red had increasingly emerged from her curse-dormant state to influence the way Ruby acted and felt, but there were still times that Regina could see none of Red's boldness and strength, smothered as they were by Ruby's insecurities. As such, Regina estimated the odds to be about 50/50 as to whether or not Ruby would freak the hell out, and those odds, she decided, were about as good as she was going to get.

Looking at her watch, Regina noted it was high past time for her to get busy with finishing Emma's reports and requisitions so that she could sign off on them. Since she needed to get home early enough to prepare for the night ahead, she was going to have to put the pedal to the metal, so to speak.

"I look forward to it, then," Regina said in response to Ruby's acceptance as she shuffled around papers, looking for the latest arrest report Emma had issued for Leeroy. She couldn't wait to read yet another summation of how stupidly a drunken dwarf could behave. "Until tonight."

"See you tonight," Ruby replied, but before hanging up she called out once more. "Hey, Regina?"

"Yes, dear?"

"I..." she began, floundering for a moment. Regina knew what Ruby wanted to say but was not quite ready to hear it, and certainly not over the phone.

"I know, Ruby," she said instead, her voice soft though her heart began to flutter anxiously. "I'll see you tonight."

"Okay," Ruby breathed, a bit of disappointment coming through in her voice. "Bye."

"Goodbye, dear."

And with that Regina hung up.

Flopping back into her chair, she sighed. She hadn't handled that last bit as gracefully as she could have but she'd been battling a minor panic attack. Many times, Ruby had almost said those three little words, but each time, Regina interrupted her. She could not afford for them to be spoken yet, afraid of what might happen if her assumption was correct regarding the depths of Ruby's feelings for her. If she was right, the end of the curse might very well be nigh at hand and with it, the end of this time of happiness in her life. Perhaps it would even mean the end of her life.

Although she was not by any means ready to die, perhaps that was not something she had any control over, and that, along with the prospect of losing Red and Henry for good, scared Regina witless.

* * *

Later on that afternoon, Regina was putting the finishing touches on dinner (a nice pot roast with assorted vegetables, one of Ruby's favorites) when she heard the jingling of keys in the front door. Ruby had arrived right on time, which was sort of unusual for her younger lover. Ruby was not known to be the most punctual person in the world, but she always made an effort for Regina's sake, which was enough most of the time to quell the offended sensibilities of a former Queen.

As she heard Ruby make her way through the hallway, Regina felt her throat clam up. The moment was now upon her and she was growing more and more anxious by the second. To be honest, a part of her felt like she was about to go on trial to be judged by the two people whose opinions she most valued while the other part felt like she was about to open a door that would either lead to her death or to the end of her happily ever after. Against all better sense, she had given the power to break her to not only her son but to her lover as well, and with so much at stake, it was a wonder she wasn't holed up in her bathroom puking her guts out.

As a Queen, Regina had been in some very high pressure situations, but none of them left her feeling so miserably weak and out of sorts as she currently felt. So much hinged on what was about to happen that the tension coiling in her chest was almost unbearable. What if Henry rejected her relationship with Ruby? What if Ruby rejected her offer? What if the happiness she had built with them over the past five months was shattered in one mortal blow? The thought was enough to make her stomach roll violently.

But then as if she were being guided by the hand of fate or some other celestial force and as if she too understood the gravity of what was about to happen, Ruby appeared around the corner dressed in the same outfit she'd worn on their first date. In that very instant, Regina's heart gave a lurch, feeling a subtle sensation growing within her heart: hope. Clinging to that with all her might, she faced her lover, ready as she would ever be to take on whatever challenges came her way from the fallout of what she was about to do.

And then Ruby gave her a smile, and not just an ordinary one, but one of the kind that no one else got to see but Regina, the kind that was like a portrait of pure sunshine painted across her face or a window which opened to reveal the persistently bright light that lived within her heart. Ruby was saying through her expression what Regina hadn't allowed her to over the phone. It was a silent "I love you." Again, hope flared dangerously within Regina's breast, so powerful that it nearly brought her to her knees.

"Hey," Ruby greeted, a hushed whisper that was expressing so much more than the one syllable of its sound.

"Hey yourself," Regina replied, bringing her hand up over her heart where the organ was beating with more strength than it had in untold years.

A concerned look spread across Ruby's face as she approached. "You okay?" she asked.

"Yes, of course," Regina replied, clearing her voice and straightening her back. She smoothed a hand self-consciously over her lavender blouse, smoothing out wrinkles that were not there.

Ruby did not appear convinced by her assurance. "You sure?" she asked, laying a gentle hand on Regina's elbow. "You're a little flushed. You're not sick or anything are you?"

"It's just hot in here," Regina explained, smiling so as to set Ruby at ease. "Dinner is almost ready. If you'll go have a seat in the living room, I need to have a talk with Henry first. Is that okay?"

"Sure, sure," Ruby nodded. "I'll just head in there, but first..."

Trailing off, Ruby leaned in for a kiss, which Regina gratefully accepted. As their lips lingered together, Regina indulged in a calm moment of domestic happiness, surrounded not only by her feelings of affection for Ruby but by Ruby's mutual adoration. The comfortable familiarity of Ruby's kisses always gave her a feeling of belonging and acceptance of the sort she'd yearned to experience since she was a child.

After parting, Regina couldn't help but be captivated by the sweet yet half-dopey smile on her lover's face. Flooded by need, she pressed in once more, rejoining their lips. She breathed into the kiss, savoring the taste of the woman she loved.

"Mmm," Ruby hummed after Regina broke away again a few moments later. "I was happy with the first kiss but thank you for the second."

With a husky laugh, Regina grasped Ruby by the shoulders and then turned her toward the door. "You're welcome," she said and then swatted Ruby's jean-clad rear. "Now go sit while I finish dinner."

Looking back over her shoulder with a scandalized expression, Ruby's gaze narrowed. Regina could already see the wheels turning. She was going to pay for that later. For a split second, she saw a mischievous glint pass through Ruby's eyes, which made her wary that Ruby might retaliate in a more immediate fashion, but then her face relaxed into a more affable expression. "Yes, ma'am," she replied with a playful salute, and then made her way out of the kitchen as instructed.

Chuckling, Regina returned to the oven to lower the heat so that the roast wouldn't burn while she was talking to Henry and Ruby. Since she was back in the vicinity, she rechecked to ensure that everything was suitably prepared. It was. The salad was tossed and waiting in the refrigerator along with the Spanish rice pudding she'd made the night before for Henry. Seeing as it was one of Ruby's favorites as well, she figured she couldn't go wrong even with it being reheated.

When she was sure everything was in order, she took a deep breath, wiped her hands down on her apron and then removed the garment. Before leaving the kitchen, she folded it and placed it on the counter-top, making a mental note to come back for it later to put it in the laundry. Since everything was ready, she had no more reason to procrastinate. It was time to face the music.

Squaring her shoulders, she made her way upstairs to Henry's room and knocked on his door once she reached it.

"Come in," he replied from inside.

Regina opened the door and stepped into the room. To her surprise, Henry was sitting on the edge of his bed waiting for her, his hands clasped tightly together with a very apprehensive look on his face.

Rushing over to him, Regina knelt down and rested a hand on his knee. Large uncertain eyes met hers. "What's wrong, sweetheart?" she asked, concerned by his state.

"What's tonight about, Mom?" was his response, his voice strained with an unidentifiable quality.

Regina was confused by the inquiry. "What do you mean?"

With a prolonged sigh, Henry averted his gaze to his window, looking out of it forlornly as if searching for an answer in the stars. "I mean with Ruby," he said. "I know you guys are going out...I mean, 'dating'," he clarified with air quotes after turning back to his mother, using his best grown-up impression. "But I think it's a lot more than that."

Regina was momentarily taken aback. She had come upstairs all ready to confess the true nature of her relationship with Ruby to her son and here he was dropping the bomb on her that he'd already known. While it wasn't wholly surprising, she hadn't really prepared herself to deal with the actuality of such a development, though she probably should have.

Not quite sure how to respond, she leaned back a bit to study her son's face. He had the look of a person who knew a secret that was being kept from him and was determined to have it out in the open no matter the consequence. For such a young boy, it was surprisingly intimidating look.

"H-how so?"

Shrugging boyishly, that aura of severity slipped a bit and he replied, "I see the way you guys look at each other. I'm a kid, Mom but I'm not dumb. Emma's not either 'cause she's seen it, too."

Eyes wide, Regina sat back on her legs, stunned for a moment by Henry's confession. "Emma knows about Ruby and me?"

"Yep," Henry answered, popping the 'p' overly loud, a habit he'd picked up from his generally annoying birth mother. "A month or so ago," he went on to explain, "I was out with Emma in the park and we saw you guys kissing near the lake. She was kinda mad. I had to tell her you've been 'dating' Ruby for a while now."

Narrowing her eyes, Regina fixed Henry with a glare. "What is with this whole...'dating' thing you're doing?"

Again, Henry shrugged. "I just didn't want to embarrass you."

"And just how might you embarrass me by referring to my relationship with Ruby?"

"You know," he said, gesturing his arms in the air, "that you guys are having sex."

"Henry!" Regina gasped. For a moment she sat there gaping at her now blushing son. "I hardly know what to say to that," she began after a moment, "but as your mother, I suppose I need to know: how do you know I'm having sex with Ruby and how do you even know what sex is? You're 10 years old for heaven's sake."

"Kids talk," he explained matter-of-factly as if his mother should already be aware of that. "I've known what sex is for a while now, doesn't mean I don't think it's gross though."

Regina sighed. "Well, that's a relief, at least. But you didn't answer my other question."

Blushing to the tips of his toes, Henry averted his gaze. "Remember that time Mary Margaret spilled coffee on Ruby's shirt?" Regina nodded. The coffee had been scalding hot and left burns on Ruby's chest that, although faint, were still visible to this day. "Then you also remember that she took her shirt off right there in the diner." Again, Regina nodded, pinching her nose between her fingers. She thought she had an idea of where Henry was going with this. "Well, I kinda got an eyeful, Mom. Not that I was trying to, though. I mean, she was just standing there in the middle of the diner in her red bra..."

"Alright, alright, I get it," Regina interrupted, not wanting to hear anymore of her son's firsthand knowledge of Ruby's bra color. "But why did that particular...event...convince you that…you know," she faltered lamely.

"That you're having sex with Ruby?" Henry bluntly supplied.

"Henry! Tact."

"Sorry," he shrugged, clearly not sorry at all. "Anyway, a couple months ago I ran out of toothpaste so I went into your room to get some. When I was walking past the bed, I saw something sticking out from underneath it. I was curious, so I picked it up."

"And it was Ruby's red bra," they both said at the same time, smiling at each other despite the awkward nature of the conversation.

"So, if you've known all this time, why didn't you say anything?" she asked. "Come to think of it, why didn't Emma say anything either?"

"I wasn't sure what you were doing with her," was his vague answer. "I'm still not. That's why Emma kept quiet, too."

Though she thought she understood the implication, she wasn't certain enough to confront it, so she drew her brows together and frowned at her son. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Instead of answering her question, Henry brushed a hand through his short hair, obviously a bit frightened at Regina's hard-set expression. He then went on to further his prevarication. "You know, Emma thinks this is all a ruse, that you're just 'playing house' with Ruby to throw her off and that when you're done with that, you'll get tired of Ruby and move on."

Although Henry had used the guise of Emma's opinion on the situation, Regina could tell he at least partially, if not fully, shared it. The terrible nature of the accusation was so astonishing that she had to cover her mouth to keep from gasping aloud. How could he think she would use Ruby and then toss her away like so much trash?

Since learning he was adopted, Henry had said many mean things to her, such as that she wasn't really his mom, or that she couldn't really love him because she didn't give birth to him, and while those things hurt – and a lot at that – they were not totally unexpected. As only a true cynic could, she'd been preparing herself for those kinds of barbs almost from the moment she adopted him. But to hear Henry accuse her – albeit in a roundabout way – of using Ruby in such a deplorable way was like a resounding slap in her face.

But it also made her realize just how disgustingly cruel she'd been herself over the years. While reigning as Queen, she had used many, many people in many ways, some of them sexual in nature, some of them not. Thinking of Graham, her heart constricted in her chest. It was her sexual conquests that had her reeling at the moment, because in the end, the results of such dalliances were always the same: Regina got what she wanted and left at best a broken shell of a person behind. So, while it hurt that her son thought she was using Ruby, it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility, which was what hurt most of all.

"Is that what you think I'm doing?" she asked Henry, searching his eyes for an answer.

Ducking his head, Henry replied sorrowfully, "I don't know. I don't want to! But when Emma came to town, you got so mean and did so many terrible things..."

A wounded sound tore from Regina's throat as turned her face to hide her reaction. Henry's suggestion had been painful to confront, but now she understood why he had come to such a conclusion. Somewhere along the way, she had made her own son question as to whether or not she was capable of love at all. With a 10 year old boy's logical capability, it was easy to make the connection that if she was incapable of loving Ruby, perhaps she was not even capable of loving him, and that Henry had any cause to doubt her love for him was perhaps the worst failing possible for her as a mother.

Once again, she thought miserably, her pain was the product of her own actions. More and more, she was beginning to see that she was at fault for most of her own suffering, and as such, she could no longer justifiably heap the responsibility on her mother, Rumplestilstkin or Snow White. In one conversation, Henry had obliterated her twisted rationale for casting the Curse in the first place.

"Oh, Henry," she cried, battling tears as she returned her gaze to her son, searching him for any indication that he was willing to forgive her. "I know I've messed up but haven't I been better? I thought things were getting better with us, that you could see how much I'm trying. Yes, I was wrong to behave the way I did with Emma, I admit that and I'm sorry for it, but I was scared. I know that doesn't excuse my actions, though."

When Henry didn't answer, she tipped his chin up so that he was looking at her and fixed him with an intently pleading look. "Can I ask you a question that you will promise to answer honestly?" When he nodded, Regina took his hand. "Do you believe that I love you?"

Biting his bottom lip, Henry nodded again, causing Regina to sigh with relief. "Good," she breathed, "because I do. _So_ much. More than anything. More than my own life."

Seeming to accept her words as truth, Henry squeezed her hand, further reassuring Regina that her son was not yet lost to her.

"And Ruby?" he then asked, his eyes still holding an uncertainty that pricked at her heart.

"Would it bother you if I didn't love her?" she asked, probing carefully around the edges of the question to draw out why he was so interested in this that he risked his mother's famous wrath to confront her. She needed to know if it was because of his suspicion of her or his concern for Ruby's welfare.

"Yes!" Henry suddenly shouted, his face growing angry. "It would be wrong, Mom! Ruby is so nice, and she's pretty and cool, and she's _such_ a good person. And she _loves_ you. She deserves to be happy, so if you don't love her, then you have to stop this right now!"

"Okay, okay," Regina soothed, smiling in spite of her son's righteous anger. When he caught her reaction to his tirade, Henry looked at her as if she had grown two heads.

"Why are you not mad?" he asked, his eyes narrowed.

In response, Regina chuckled and lifted her hand to Henry's cheek. To her relief, he did not turn away, but accepted the gesture, though she could still feel the heat of his anger in his cheeks.

"Because you care," she explained, still smiling. "All of this is not just about you being angry with me but because you care about Ruby, too – enough to yell at me for hurting her. It lets me know that you'll be okay with what I'm about to tell you."

"Which is?"

"Henry," Regina began after clearing her throat, "how would you feel if there was someone else living here besides us?"

When the question registered, Henry's mouth fell open for a moment. He looked almost disbelieving. "You mean Ruby?"

Regina returned her hand to Henry's. "Yes. Even though you haven't know the entire time, we've been together nearly six months now and I want to ask her to come live with us. That is, if it's alright with you."

Disbelief faded away from Henry's face to be replaced by muted excitement. "Really?"

"Yes, really."

Narrowing his eyes once more, he asked, "Why?"

Regina knew what he was asking and for once in her life, was prepared to give the answer. "Because I love her." Now that it was out in the open, Regina felt a weight lift off of her shoulders. For the first time in 28 years, she was free to openly admit she loved Red. It was an incredible feeling. "I love her," she continued, now smiling uncontrollably, "and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I consider her a member of our family, so she belongs here with us."

"Does she know that?" he asked, his eyes betraying a wisdom that was far beyond his years.

Somewhat ashamedly, Regina shook her head. "Not yet. But there's a reason for that. While all that I've said is true – that I want Ruby to be a permanent part of this family – it can't happen without your approval. You are my son and this is your home, too. So, if you're uncomfortable with this in any way, _please_ tell me, because you are under no pressure or obligation here. It's okay for you to say no, Henry, and if you do, we'll table this discussion for later."

Leaning forward intently, Regina made sure Henry was looking straight at her before speaking her next words. In her most kindly authoritarian tone, she then informed him: "However, I also want you to understand one other thing, sweetheart: my accommodation in this matter is limited. While I love you and won't force you to accept Ruby living here, I'm not asking for your permission to be with her. I want her in my life – no, I _need_ her in my life. She gives me balance and she makes me happy. However, if that makes you uncomfortable, I'm willing to compromise by not spending any time with her while you're at home."

As if seeing his mother for the first time, Henry studied Regina's face, watching her carefully as she spoke. It was, she thought, as if he were searching for something, which he evidently saw judging by the smile that overtook his face.

"You don't have to do that, Mom," he said, squeezing her hand again. "I'm cool with you and Ruby. I just needed to know for sure that what Emma thought wasn't true. For a long time, I believed her, but I can tell you're being honest when you say you love Ruby."

Though Regina breathed an enormous sigh of relief at her son's acceptance, she recognized that he had left one very important thing unaddressed. "While I would love to talk more about Miss Swan and her opinions, and while I'm relieved you accept our relationship, you didn't tell me how you feel about Ruby moving in."

At that, Henry gave a nonchalant tilt of his head. "It's fine with me. Ruby's awesome. She's funny and is amazing at soccer, so she can teach me to play. And besides, I wouldn't mind someone living here who can actually beat my time at _Arkham City_."

"Oh, yeah?" Regina grinned, poking Henry's ribs. He gave a stunted laugh that was mostly boyish squeal accompanied by a dash of fledgling manly bark. "So she's cool because she's good at video games, huh? Well, one of these days I'll just have to you show you both who's boss."

"Please, Mom," Henry scoffed, rolling his eyes in a way very similar to her own. "You're hopeless at PlayStation and you know it."

"That's because I haven't really tried," she countered stubbornly. "But now that I've been challenged, you'll find that maybe your Mom has a few tricks up her sleeves that you don't know about."

"Right," Henry drawled. "So. When is dinner? 'Cause I'm starving." And just like that, the serious conversation was over.

Henry was always thinking with his stomach. Come to think of it, so was Ruby. So, if Ruby agreed to move in, Regina realized she was going to be living with two children instead of one. When considering that, she wasn't sure whether to laugh or groan.


	7. The Big Bang

**Standard Disclaimer** : The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately and I will correct them.

 **Chapter 7** – The Big Bang

With Henry's blessing secured as well his promise to come to dinner the minute she called for him, Regina made her way downstairs in a much better mood. Upon reaching the living room, she rounded the corner only to be stopped dead in her tracks by the sight of Ruby. Sitting on the couch with her legs crossed, her face was artfully illuminated in profile by the soft light from the lamp on the end table and relaxed in silent contemplation. Lingering in the cased opening between the living room and foyer, Regina paused to take in the captivating sight of her lover, looking so sublimely lovely as to have transcended the ability for words to adequately describe. It was as if she were being framed up for a memory that would last a lifetime

Regina was momentarily awestruck by the indelible portrait being presented to her. Such reactions were not uncommon considering Ruby's unparalleled beauty, but the way the soft light of the low-lit lamps was bathing her features made her seem almost inhuman, like she was a creature from some ethereal plane of existence beyond earth, an angel far too exquisite to be counted among such lowly creatures as humans. In times like this, Regina could only stop and stare, unable to comprehend how was it possible that she had gotten so lucky as to have this wonderful woman stumble into her.

It was especially hard to accept her blessings after all of the terrible things she'd done – after all the people she'd killed. In Storybrooke, it was easy to forget just many lives she had taken during her reign of terror in the Enchanted Forest. There were so many that she lost count long ago. As Queen, she had wiped out entire villages in her obsessive pursuit of Snow, slain scores upon scores of innocents and tortured people with festive savagery just to amuse herself. Unable to cope with her own pain, inflicting it upon others became her favorite pastime. To be honest, at that point her heart was so hardened by anger, hatred, and by the countless acts of evil she'd perpetrated that she had no longer considered herself capable of such a foolish emotion as love.

The appearance of a lonely, distraught werewolf in the Queen's forest changed that perception. Red's youthful persistence and innocent affection wore Regina's coldly pessimistic nature down and softened her heart until a door was chiseled out through which Red slipped in, in the process becoming an integral part of Regina's life. How she'd ever managed to survive so many years both in the Enchanted Forest and during the Curse without the kindhearted and loving young woman in her life, she'd never know. It was, she thought, a minor victory that she'd lasted as long as she had.

When first arriving in Storybrooke, Regina had wandered around her new creation, trying to be exultant in her hard won triumph but unable to because of the hole in her heart that Red's absence left behind. And now that they were reunited once more, she couldn't imagine ever being without Red again in whatever form she occupied.

"You gonna stand there and creep on me all night?"

Ruby's voice cut through the silence, startling Regina out of her thoughts. Glancing up, Regina saw the corner of her lips turn up and her eyes begin to sparkle in the low light.

Stepping into the room, Regina cleared her throat. "I hadn't planned to but I can continue to do so if you prefer. I do so enjoy studying you, dear. You paint such a lovely portrait."

"Too bad you can't frame me and hang me up on the wall then, huh?" Ruby quipped, smirking.

After giving Ruby a playful smile, Regina focused on a bare spot on her wall near the fireplace. Making like she was framing the spot with her hands, she squinted dramatically and then adjusted her hands several times for effect before stopping. "Perhaps you're right," she mused. "I think this spot would make an excellent place to display you. You would look rather exquisite right there between the fireplace and my newly acquired Thomas Cole. Don't you agree?"

"Hmm," Ruby answered, feigning serious contemplation. "I don't know. I guess I am kinda naturally rugged in a way."

Turning back to Ruby, Regina smirked. "Why, yes you are," she said in a husky tone, "and _very_ wild, much to my frequent delight."

Although Ruby blushed, she still managed to look proud. "And you wouldn't have me any other way."

"No, I would not," Regina agreed. Crossing over to the couch, she then slid in beside Ruby so that their hips were in contact, causing Ruby to shift so that she could lean in slightly while throwing her arm on top of the couch and around Regina's shoulders. "So..."

"So." Ruby blurted out at the same time. Regina gestured that she go first. "I was just gonna ask how your talk with Henry went. I know whenever Granny said," she shifted her voice to imitate her grandmother, "'I need to have a talk with you, girl,' it always meant bad times for Ruby were ahead."

"It was nothing so serious," Regina replied, grinning at Ruby's impression. It really was quite spot on. "I merely wanted to inform him of what I was going to discuss with you right now."

Ruby's brow perked up. "Oh?"

"Yes," Regina began, pausing to worry her lip for a moment before launching in, "you see, my son is the most important person in my life, as you know." At that, Ruby nodded. "So when I make life-changing decisions that are going to impact him, I have to inform him first in order to gauge how he feels about said decision."

"Okay," Ruby drawled, frowning slightly. "I'm following you so far but I don't get what that has to do with me." Her expression perked up as a thought crossed her mind. "Are you thinking of getting a dog, Regina? 'Cause I know you know how I'm partial to them. I mean, Pongo is just about the best thing ever."

"No, absolutely not," Regina replied, semi-horrified at the thought of a dog rampaging around her immaculate home – well, any other besides the one currently on her couch. The canine beside her was the only one Regina was willing to live with for the moment, though Ruby would not understand that. "I'm not getting a dog." At Ruby's pout, she sighed. "Although, I can make note of how you feel on the subject."

That small concession instantly perked Ruby back up. "Does that mean it might be possible some time in the future?"

Rolling her eyes, Regina chuckled. _Damn her_ , she thought, _for being so irresistibly cute_. Out loud, she responded, "We'll see, but I have to tell you, it amuses me how interested you are in the possibility of my getting a dog. It's almost as if you're personally invested with what goes on in this home."

Looking mortified, Ruby blurted out an apology. "I'm sorry, Regina. I didn't mean to imply anything by it. I'm not pushing you or anything, I promise."

Her look softening, Regina shifted so that she was skewed toward Ruby. As she looked up into wary green eyes, she reached out to take hold of Ruby's hands.

"No need to be nervous, my darling," she reassured. "Your assumption is appropriately close to the mark."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that I asked you here to dinner for a reason, to which I alluded in our earlier conversation. Tonight is meant to be for my family, which to me you are already a part of. I only want to make it more official. So, with that said," Regina lifted Ruby's hands up to her lips to brush reverent kisses over the knuckles of each one, as if she were a noble maiden and Regina her dashing suitor, "both Henry and I would like it very much if you would come live with us."

An awestruck expression worked its way through Ruby's features, starting with her eyes which widened dramatically and ending in her mouth falling open in shock. Had there not been a change in her demeanor in the moments thereafter, Regina might have grown nervous, but as a radiant smile soon formed across her lover's face all she could do was match it.

"Are you being for real?"

Regina reached out to cup Ruby's cheek, tenderly caressing over her lips and chin with the pad of her thumb. "Very much so, which is why I just talked to Henry about it."

With semi-fretful eyes, Ruby took a deep breath. "And? I mean, you said he was okay with it, but was he really?"

"He was," Regina answered frankly. "In fact, I believe his exact words were: 'It's fine with me. Ruby's awesome.'"

Ruby's eyes glinted. "Awesome, huh? And does his mom share that opinion?"

Leaning in toward her lover until their noses were almost brushing, Regina tilted her head ever-so-slightly. "You know perfectly well that she does," she whispered and then leaned in for a sweet, lingering kiss that sent a suffusing warmth flooding through her chest which flowed all the way down to her toes. After parting, Regina placed a punctuating kiss to the tip of Ruby's nose, causing it to twitch so adorably that she grinned. "So, what do you say? Want to be an official part of the Mills family?"

Biting her lip, Ruby nodded, her face radiant with joy. "I would love to. _So_ much."

Suddenly elated like a woman half her age, Regina reacted impulsively by attacking Ruby's mouth, leaning into the kiss so that her body was half hanging over Ruby's with one arm propped up on the arm of the couch and the other on its back. When Ruby changed the angle to deepen the kiss, Regina moaned and then repeated the wanton sound when a velvet tongue slid against her own. When she felt Ruby's hand dipping dangerously south soon after, she instinctively slid in even closer so that she was almost in Ruby's lap. But just when things were getting interesting, a voice from the stairway had them breaking apart like two teenagers caught making out by one of their parents.

"Gross, you guys," Henry commented, his face showing his adolescent disgust. "Really? I'm seriously going to be scarred for life if I have to see this every day."

Groaning, Regina rolled back onto the couch from where she had been hovering over Ruby and then buried her head in her lover's shoulder to hide her scarlet blush. Ruby on the other hand had a very different reaction, breaking out into laughter at both Regina's embarrassment and Henry's joking repulsion.

"Shut up, punk!" she retorted a moment later, still chuckling.

Regina glanced up just in time to see Henry grin back impishly. "Make me, bean pole."

"Don't tempt me, munchkin."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Olive Oyl."

"Alright you two, settle down," Regina intervened when Ruby started to respond again, unable to restrain a smile despite the puerile antics. She then stood up from the couch to put herself between her child and her sometimes immature lover (girlfriend...partner...Regina was not quite sure how to refer to Ruby now that they were going to be living together, but she could figure that out later). While the banter between the two could be annoying at times, it was mostly endearing, doing her heart good to see the two most important people in her life interacting with such easy familiarity. Still, being the responsible adult, she had a part to play as well.

"Dinner is ready," she pointed out, a hand on her hip as she looked between both parties, "and I'd hate to have to put both of you in time out. But I suppose I wouldn't mind having the delicious pot roast I made all to myself."

"Mom!" "Regina!" Came the simultaneous whines of protest, and as she departed for the kitchen, Regina left both Henry and Ruby gaping at one another in utter horror. It was such an amusing sight that she cackled with unrestrained glee.

* * *

Regina had thought that dinner might be a tense affair due to the new adjustments being made, but to her immense relief both Henry and Ruby seemed to adapt effortlessly. With stories and jokes being told along with plenty of talk about school, video games, and the latest comic book Henry had read, it was almost as if he and Ruby were having just another weekly meal together as had become part of their routine over the past several weeks. Such a lack of disturbance to their established rhythm made Regina's earlier fears seem quite foolish in retrospect, although if ever there was an occasion for her to gladly be a fool, it was with this.

All in all, everyone had a splendid time. The food was delicious (there were plenty of complements to the cook, which Regina ate up as always) and the atmosphere was casual and relaxed. It felt like a real, honest-to-God family dinner, the first Regina had enjoyed since Henry was a bit younger. At one time, when she ate dinner with her son, it would be as it was at present but that changed when he found out he was adopted. For a long time after, things were tense between Regina and her son, but now it was almost as if those hurtful weeks and months had been erased, and it was in no small part thanks to Ruby.

Without even trying, Ruby had become the glue that bonded Regina with her son once again, and for that, she would eternally grateful. But as if that were not enough, Ruby made it her mission in life to become Henry's best friend, and to Regina's great surprise she had admirably succeeded in that goal. She hadn't expected her son to take to Ruby so quickly, but the versatile and interesting young woman seemed to be able to put herself on Henry's level in a way that his mother couldn't.

Though such pursuits generally annoyed Regina, Ruby was not averse to playing video games or watching superhero movies for hours on end, hell, she even seemed to genuinely enjoy them. In a way, Ruby had started to replace some of his need to be around Emma, "the cool Mom", so that the more she was around the less he seemed to mention the many desirable attributes of his birth mother. There were even times of late that Henry would go an entire day without wishing out loud that Emma was around so he would have someone to pal around with, whereas a few months before, it had seemed like such mentions were an hourly event.

And it wasn't that Regina wanted to keep Henry away from Emma because she didn't. She just wanted to be her son's mother again, to be the one he ran to whenever he was in trouble or hurt or sad or happy. Little by little, that aspect of the mother-son relationship was returning, but it couldn't have happened without Ruby's stabilizing presence in their lives. In bringing happiness back to Regina, Ruby had afforded her security and courage to let down her walls in such a way that she was being freed of her insecurities one day at a time. The mother that Henry had not seen for far too long (to Regina's great shame), the one who had fed him and changed his diapers and soothed away his every tear and fear, was returning, and that this was happening at all was a minor miracle in the light of how bad things had gotten.

Eventually, Regina became so overwhelmed by her emotions that she was forced to retreat to the kitchen. She hadn't wanted to spoil such a wonderful night due to her overly sensitive emotions and thus found herself alone in her kitchen, leaning over the sink while trying to regather herself. She turned when she heard someone walk in a few minutes later.

"Hey," Ruby greeted with a look of concern. "You okay?"

"I am now," she replied, nodding. It had all just gotten too intense but she really was feeling a bit more level. "Where's Henry? Is he okay? I didn't scare him did I?"

Crossing over to stand at Regina's side, Ruby began to rub a soothing pattern along her lower back. Regina leaned into the touch.

"No, you didn't. I talked to him and he's okay," Ruby reassured her. "He was obviously worried about you but understood when I explained that tonight was kinda overwhelming for you. Anyway, since he was done with dinner, I excused him to read for a bit before he does his homework. I hope that wasn't overstepping my bounds."

Breathing a sigh, Regina shook her head to indicate she accepted Ruby's decision. If her son and new domestic partner were ever going to build a solid relationship beyond being buddies, she was going to have to start trusting Ruby to be a co-parent to Henry in much the same way as Emma was. And unlike with Emma Swan, it wasn't a bothersome prospect to Regina, nor did it worry her in the least. Ruby had a good head on her shoulders where Henry was concerned, and seemed to already fit into their family like she was always supposed to be there despite her frequent insistence that she would make an atrocious mother. The way Ruby was with Henry proved otherwise to Regina but she was content to allow Ruby her denial for the time being.

"No, that's fine," Regina elaborated, looking up at Ruby with a grateful smile to make sure her intent was clear. "I'm glad you did as a matter of fact. I want you to feel like it's okay to be more involved in his life now."

Ruby looked astounded. "You do?"

"Of course I do!" Regina insisted, though she understood Ruby's surprise. Up until the present, she had been admittedly stingy with Emma where Henry was concerned, having fought tooth and nail against and undermined Henry's birth mother every step of the way. Her trust where her son was concerned was precious and not given easily but Ruby had long since earned it, unlike Emma Swan.

Come to think of it, Regina was very interested to witness the so-called Savior's reaction when she found out Ruby was moving in with her. A little more than five months had passed since they started dating, but Regina still remembered the stars in Emma's eyes every time she looked at Ruby back then. And even though that had faded somewhat and Emma had essentially become Ruby's best friend, she was not so perpetually well composed that she never slipped. It was rare, but Regina had personally witnessed Emma reveal the admittedly dimmed torch she still carried for Ruby more than once, and while she really couldn't blame the woman at all for being smitten, Ruby was too trusting for Regina to relax where the intrusive blonde was concerned.

But even more, Regina wondered how Emma would adapt to Henry having yet another authority figure in his life, one who posed a legitimate threat to Emma's place in his heart. That she was Henry's birth mother would be a point of bond that could never be overcome, but the main part of Emma's appeal to Henry seemed to be her 'cool' factor. Being younger than Regina and more worldly made Emma extremely interesting to a sheltered young boy like Henry, but Ruby offered him many of the same traits that made Emma so alluring and some that went beyond what even Emma could offer.

For instance, Ruby was fun and energetic and funny and good at almost everything she tried. Regina was kind of envious of the fluidity with which Ruby learned new skills but she supposed the ability stemmed from her werewolf DNA, since all naturally born werewolves were physical gifted specimens in ways that went far beyond heightened senses and the ability to transform into enormously frightening wolves. Ruby was a prime example of that, for whether in sports or video games or martial arts, she excelled in every activity she attempted involving physicality or keen reflexes. As a result, Henry had come to sort of idolize her, though it was not so much a worshipful attitude as the kind that made him want to spend as much time with her as possible if just to learn from her, a feeling Regina could relate to, though on a much more intimate level.

Emma Swan finally had real competition for Henry's extra attention and Regina couldn't wait to watch the woman flounder. There was just no way in Regina's eyes that she could contend with Ruby.

"You're going to be involved in his daily life now," she then went on, seeing Ruby's raised brow as she waited patiently for elaboration. "He needs to know that he can trust you and depend on you, which I think he already does."

"And believe me, that makes me feel like a million bucks," Ruby smiled, tucking her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. Rolling on her heels a time or two, she shrugged with an affected blush. "I love the kid. I'd do just about anything for him."

"Which is why I'm more than fine with you taking a more active role," Regina replied, stepping up to Ruby and sliding her hands around her lover's slim hips until they were resting over her pocketed hands. She leaned up and gave Ruby a quick kiss. "But since Henry is alright," she said after pulling away to looking up at her taller partner, "I want to know about you. How are you doing with all of this? I know it's sudden and an enormous change to process in one night."

"Well, that depends," Ruby replied as she extricated herself from Regina's grasp only to maneuver herself deliberately behind the shorter woman. After pressing her body flush to Regina's back, Ruby wound her arms around Regina's waist and rested her head on a tense shoulder.

Regina relaxed into the embrace. "On?"

Nuzzling her nose into Regina's neck, Ruby took a deep breath. "On you. Are you really okay with this? The way you reacted in there, I thought for a moment you might be having second thoughts."

"Absolutely not," Regina said, gripping Ruby's arm. "I've not been so sure of anything in my life since I decided to adopt Henry." She then ran her hand down Ruby's forearm until she reached her hand where she linked their fingers together. "I'm not second guessing anything. I'm just happy, Ruby – happier than I ever thought I could be."

Ruby pulled away. "I would think that to be a good thing. So why are you so tense?"

"I've told you some of my past," Regina said. Ruby nodded. "Every time things get good for me, I get the rug pulled out from under my feet. So, I suppose that I'm subconsciously waiting for the inevitable."

"Which is?"

"For you to leave me," she explained, hating how pathetic she sounded, "for something to happen to you that would take you away from me. I don't know, Ruby...I'm just a little afraid. I don't want to lose you."

Ruby couldn't know in that moment that Regina was thinking about the Curse, but she was. Regina _was_ afraid because she was pretty sure that time was running out on her brief moment of happiness. Any day, Emma Swan might start to believe, and if that happened the Curse would quickly come unraveled. Once Red woke up, she was bound to hate Regina for what she'd done, which would leave the former Queen alone with nothing but her memories.

Regina was not yet ready to give Ruby up but she had little choice in the matter. Whether the Curse was broken or not was now out of her hands. There was no use fighting against the inevitable anymore.

Stepping back around Regina, Ruby cupped her cheeks, expressive eyes imploring Regina to heed her next words.

"I'm not going to leave you, Regina," she said, and according to a certain line of logic, Regina believed that. _Ruby_ wouldn't leave her, that Regina was confident of. But could she say the same for Red? Probably not and the thought weighed heavily on her heart. "Hey, I'm not," Ruby reiterated more forcefully, having seen the doubt written all over Regina's face. "I'm in this for the long haul. I want this," she removed her hands to gesture in between them, "us, more than anything else I've ever wanted. You have to believe that."

"I do, Ruby, I do," Regina said, her eyes hopeful but the rest of her face not quite having caught up to that optimism.

Tilting her head to the side, Ruby smiled reassuringly. "Well, then, just trust in that. Believe in us. I do."

Grasping Ruby's hand, Regina gave it a reassuring squeeze. "I'll try. I promise."

"That's all I ask."

With that, Regina return to Ruby's arms. "So," she breathed out in an effort to change the subject. She wanted to veer the conversation away from the heaviness that was threatening to stain what should be a joyful occasion, and to that end, she placed a lingering kiss to inviting lips in order to quell any attempts at reigning the conversation back to where it was. By the way Ruby leaned into it, Regina's ploy worked. "I didn't get to tell you earlier but you look so beautiful tonight," she commented a moment later. "Just like the first time I saw you."

Giving Regina a sideways grin, Ruby cocked her head. "But it wasn't the first time you saw me."

"You know what I mean," Regina answered, her voice gravelly and weighted by the depth of her emotions, "It wasn't the first time I saw you but it was the first time I _saw_ you. It was the first time I realized how dangerous you were to me and just how easy it would be for me to..." she trailed off, worrying her lip.

Ruby gave a stuttering breath. "To what?"

"To fall in love with you," Regina exhaled. "And I have, Ruby. I'm in love with you. And I know this is backwards. I mean, you're moving in and I've haven't said the words yet, but you have to know how much I wanted to! I just wasn't ready yet." Pressing further into Ruby, Regina wound her arms around Ruby's neck and pulled their foreheads together. "But I am now, and I'm so sorry it took me so long. I'm not an easy person to love, Ruby, and I've not been the kind of person who is able to give her heart away in a very long time. You make me want to be that person again."

"Regina," Ruby breathed, her eyes wide and staring with awe into Regina's. There was so much unfettered adoration in them that Regina completely lost herself in the moment. "Say it again."

With what was probably a sickeningly sappy grin, Regina happily obliged. "I love you, Ruby Lucas."

Her chin trembling, a wide smile broke out on Ruby's face. "I love you, too, Regina Mills."

Leaning down, Regina smirked. "Just don't forget who said it first."

"As if I could," Ruby retorted, her breath ghosting across Regina's lips.

And then they were kissing once again, though this was unlike the other more chaste kisses that preceded it. This one was like it was the very first time, tentative yet hopeful, soft yet yearning, and so perfectly sweet that tears pricked at Regina's eyes. Taking a deep breath through her nose, she poured everything into the point of exhilarating contact between herself and her lover: her heart, her love, and her adoration for the incredible woman who had chosen her above all others.

It was a strange feeling for Regina to have someone who loved her enough to stand by her even though she was a complex, frustrating, and difficult woman. No one since Daniel had even cared enough to get to know those parts of her, least of all appreciate them, but Red had done so twice, her love so unshakeable that even the curse could not alter it. Red's unique devotion was both a testament to her character and a stark reminder to Regina of how precious the woman was, far above anything material, even the most rare and expensive of jewels. The thought reminded Regina of a proverb she had read from one this world's sacred texts espousing the value of such a woman, which made Red's cursed moniker all the more appropriate.

Swept away by an intense rush of emotions, reality faded into the background. Time began to lose meaning, almost as if she were in the midst of some sort of mystical experience. It was like she was tranquilly afloat on an ocean of peace, secured by Ruby's embrace and anchored by the passion of her love. She was being carried away, guided by the gentle waves to a better place of being where happiness was not only possible but a reality. Regina could it feel it there, her true happy ending, just through the mist and over the horizon, so close that her heart was about to burst. She had never felt such love before in her life.

It was at that very moment that she realized with no small measure of shock that her love for the woman in her arms had surpassed even that she bore for Daniel. It seemed impossible. For most of her adult life, she'd venerated what she'd shared with her humble stable boy as incomparable, holding that innocently pure love up as the golden standard to which all great loves must be compared. Knowing that none could ever measure up to the ideal she'd constructed, Regina all but gave up on the possibility of finding another person who might be worthy to stand in Daniel's shadow, someone she could trust with all of her heart, someone she could love with all of her soul. But oh how wrong she had been.

Somehow, Red had done the impossible by usurping Daniel's place in her heart, and for a brief moment, Regina almost panicked. Her sanctuary trembled as if about to crumble. But then, almost as if aware of how much she needed it, she could see her stable boy once more. Materializing out of the mist with a kind and gentle smile prominently on display, pride filled his eyes.

"This is all I ever wanted...for you to be happy," he then spoke audibly, his voice disconnected from space and time like an echo of an echo, though somehow still warm like honey, "It's what I lived for...what I died for. And now that I know you've found love again – that you've found someone deserving of the priceless gift you have to give – I can rest at long last."

"Daniel!" her imagined self shouted as he began to fade away. "Don't leave me!"

"I'll never leave you," he replied, his ghostly voice echoing through her mind. "Nor will she."

With those final words, something began to happen. A warmth formed in Regina's body, starting at the base of her spine and then working its way up to settle in her chest. All around the kitchen, pots and pans began to rattle. The air quaked in a muted crescendo, growing and growing in volume until suddenly a great explosion occurred, violently separating her from Ruby's embrace. With equally wide eyes, they turned to watch a flat disc of magic strangely mixed with purple and red swirls burst out from the epicenter of their bodies. Like a shock wave, it radiated outward to pass through the walls of the kitchen where it then disappeared from sight.

Clenching her eyes shut, Regina's heart dropped. She didn't have to be told what that was. Fear seized her limbs, gluing her to the floor. She looked up to see Ruby blinking as if just awakening out of the darkness of a 28 year long slumber and into the blinding light of the sun.

"Ruby?" Regina prompted warily. She had never felt so small and helpless as she did at that moment.

A frown crossed Ruby's features as she gazed at Regina, the memories of two lives warring inside her head. "Regina?" she croaked, bringing a hand up to rub her temple.

Shuffling a bit on her feet, Regina crossed her arms over her chest, feigning nonchalance though she was screaming inside. "Yes. It's me." For the briefest of moments, Regina felt her heart stop. This was it. It was over. The Curse had been broken and Red was back. The only question was: what happened next?


	8. The Awful Toll of Reality

**Standard Disclaimer** : The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately and I will correct them.

 **Chapter 8** – The Awful Toll of Reality

"What?" Ruby gasped, looking around the kitchen with startled eyes. "What happened? Where are w..." At that, she paused, realization dawning.

Regina could mark the very instant that Ruby – or more specifically the cursed construct personality – relinquished control by the prominent flaring of her nostrils and the angry tilt to her brow that were so common to Red. At long last the woman she'd longed to be reunited with had returned and rather than being over the moon as she should have been, Regina was violently conflicted. In a nauseating impression of an unstable roller coaster, her stomach began to perform loop-de-loops in her abdomen, producing a sense of vertigo that was tilting everything off axis.

"The Curse," Ruby – no, Red – then said, her gaze snapping back to Regina. She looked anguished and furious. "You actually did it. You cursed us. You cursed me! How could you?!" With each accusation, she advanced until she was in Regina's face. Rather than react, Regina stood and accepted Red's wrath, feeling she deserved it. But rather than receiving further verbal assaults, Red's anger dissipated as quickly as it came, draining out as if the bottom had fallen out from under her. It was replaced by an emotion that looked very much like revulsion. "Oh, my God," she moaned, appearing very close to being sick. "Oh, God. Oh, _God_!"

"What is it?" Regina asked, reaching out to grasp Red's forearms. Her lover jerked away from her, turning away to pace for almost a minute around the kitchen with her hands in her hair, tugging almost hysterically at the roots in what Regina thought must be a painful manner.

Suddenly, Red halted and turned on her once more. "How many?"

Confused, Regina tilted her head, her brows drawn. "How many what?"

Now, Red's demeanor truly collapsed. The stalwart wall that formerly held her together had been hit with a 120mm shell of awareness, pulverizing it to dust, and leaving an already tormented woman exposed to the horrible reality of what she had been through. "How many people have I had sex with because of what you did?" she panted, her voice laden with torturous amounts of disgust. "Jesus Christ! I can't even remember. Oh, God. Oh, my God! I'm going to be sick!"

Bolting from the room, Red scurried through the hallway to the nearest bathroom and launched herself in front of the toilet just in time to vomit. Frantically, Regina trailed behind with her heart in her throat, not knowing how to help or whether Red would even want her around anymore. _You deserve this_ , she berated herself, her inner voice sounding terrifying close to her mother's, _this is all your fault. Go in there and take your punishment._ Long ago conditioned to obey such a command, she did exactly that.

Following her lover into the bathroom, Regina halted at the sight of Red bent over the toilet retching her guts out. The poor girl was under such strain that her face was nearly an identical shade as her sweater, the veins in her neck bulging with reflexive effort. It was painful to watch.

Regina had forgotten just how violent Red's illnesses were. The woman barely ever got sick, but when she did, it was in epic fashion. The one time Regina had ever seen Red ill in the Enchanted Forest was during an outbreak of a harsh but short-lived sickness that spread like wildfire from the outlying villages to her castle. The plague was so fast acting that there had been nothing Regina could do but watch helplessly as her subjects grew ill and some number died.

Against advice, Red being the selfless person she was had spent hour upon hour tending to the sick, doing what she could to alleviate the suffering of patients by pressing wet cloths against burning foreheads, by making sure they stayed hydrated, and by sitting with them while they mumbled deliriously through the worst of the fever. Regina had warned Red that she was being reckless risking herself in that way but Red was a stubborn young woman who would not be told what to do and had insisted over and over that she didn't get sick...ever. Well, in that case she did, and the mess she left behind for Regina the next day was so thorough that magic was required to clean it up.

But this time there was no microscopic virus tearing its way through Red's body, no fevers to treat or chills to ward off. The sickness now afflicting her was one of Regina's own making. Another transgression to add to the list, Regina thought bitterly as she watched Red struggle through frantic fits of dry heaving, panting for breath between them. Regina thought about sitting with her lover as she had before, holding back her hair and stroking through it comfortingly while whispering soothing words into Red's ear; but after the first step forward, she immediately reeled back in trepidation. The last thing she wanted to do was exacerbate the situation by invading Red's personal space while ill and hurting and angry. Paralyzed by inaction and torn between fear and a needling desire to help her ailing lover, Regina could do nothing besides silently stew in her own misery.

Once Red's episode of sickness finally passed, she collapsed backward and began to sob loudly. The sound cut Regina to the quick, for they weren't normal cries but wrenching and violent wails that sliced through the air like a knife, lodging in her spine where they dug in painfully.

Having heard Red's very audible distress, Henry appeared in the doorway a moment later. "What's wrong?" he asked, wide-eyed and afraid.

"Nothing, sweetheart," Regina replied, turning to face her son, her little boy, her world. She was about the lose the two most important people in her life in one fell swoop. It felt like the world was collapsing around her and she was powerless to stop it. But however much it hurt, she knew she had to protect Henry from what was to come.

Turning from Red's broken form for a moment, she fixed her son with a pointed look. "Listen, Henry, Ruby will be alright. Don't worry, I'll take care of her. What I want you to do is go upstairs and call Emma. Have her come pick you up immediately." Henry opened his mouth to object, but Regina stopped him short. "Please, Henry. Do this for me?"

"Okay, Mom," he nodded, still looking frightened. "But what's happening? Why is Ruby crying? And why are you sending me away with Emma?"

"I don't have time to explain or I would," she answered, her face grave so that her son could understand how important it was that he obey her this one last time. "I just need you to do what I ask."

A stubborn set to his jaw, Henry crossed his arms. "I will but only if you tell me what's wrong."

Sighing, Regina caved. She didn't have time to argue with him when Red was so distraught and her time was running out. "Fine. I hate to be so blunt but you were right, Henry, all this time." Pain lanced through Regina's chest at acknowledging openly that her son had been right to call her the Evil Queen. She was the Evil Queen and always would be. The evidence of that was curled up on her bathroom floor, weeping miserably because of how she'd suffered under Regina's Curse. "This town has been under a curse just like you said it was. The book was right about that but it left out one key detail."

His face betraying his anger and heartbreak, Henry gave Regina the one small mercy of not turning his back on her or flinging insults in her face. Instead, he calmly asked, "What?"

Wetting her lips, Regina felt tears begin to slide down her cheeks despite her effort to hold them in. Her chin started trembling like jello. She felt vulnerable and rubbed raw but she endured it for the sake of the two people in the world she actually loved enough to fight for.

"I'm not without feelings, Henry," she said around a hitch in her voice. "Before I cast the curse, I was with someone. We were together for over a year but I let my pride and anger override my heart. I loved this person but it took me facing what I thought would be eternal separation for me to realize that. It was Ruby, Henry. I loved her then and I love her now. And I know it might not seem like it, and I admit I've not been the best mother, but I swear to you that I _do_ love you. You're my son and I love you so much. Please, no matter what happens, don't forget that."

Now openly crying himself, Henry backed away from the door shaking his head. "I can't...I can't...I love you, Mom but I can't..."

"I know, sweetheart," Regina sobbed. "I'm so, so sorry!"

And as Henry turned and bolted away from the bathroom, Regina collapsed to her knees, full of too much guilt too hold inside. With no tether left to hold her up, she succumbed to her self-inflicted misery, and at last allowed herself to cry. Everything was crumbling down around her head, suffocating her under the weight, and it was enough to fray the edges of her control. She could only imagine how Red felt.

Thinking of what Red had endured for the last three decades sent another wave of crushing emotions coursing through Regina, foremost among them being a torturous sense of horror which had been held back for so long by willful ignorance that upon being unleashed it began to rip its way through her being. A fiery hot trail of burning self-loathing was left in its wake, stealing her ability to reason or breath. Regina couldn't be sure how long she sat in the floor sobbing herself to the point of near hyperventilation. Several times nausea overwhelmed her to the point that she nearly threw up. Her entire life was coming apart at the seams and she had no one to blame but herself.

As she had every right to be, Red was utterly devastated by having been so violated and Regina was sure that Henry would now realize his hatred of her had been justified and in accordance redouble his efforts to see her brought down. Though the pain of that actuality was incredible, nearly blinding even, Regina recognized that it was the price she had to pay. Her suffering was just punishment for her innumerable and unpardonable iniquities.

Still whimpering pathetically, she clenched her eyes shut and hugged her arms around her middle in a futile attempt to hold herself together. She could hear the sounds of the toilet flushing soon after, followed by a shuffling of clothes, after which the sink was turned on for a moment. Vaguely, Regina recognized that Red was cleansing her mouth of the taste of vomit, reminding her once again of what had caused the sickness in the first place. Withering back in on herself like a wilting violet, Regina shuddered.

But then a few moments later, something totally unexpected happened. Feeling Red move in behind her, Regina heard her lover sit, and in a gesture that could only come from someone as essentially good as Red, a pair of strong arms wound their way around her waist, securing comfortably around her stomach.

"Hey, hey," Red's strained and gravelly voice implored, clearly affected by Regina's breakdown. When Regina did not calm, Red pulled her more fully into her embrace and then stretched her legs out on either side of Regina's kneeling form. Tugging the older woman's body back, Regina fell onto her rear and into Red's welcoming embrace. After resting her head back on Red's shoulder so as to be cheek-to-cheek, the resilient and brave werewolf began to rock them both in a soothing motion.

"Shh," Red then began to coo tenderly, "It's okay. I'm here. I'm still here, Regina. I've got you. It's going to be okay, I promise."

Red's consoling words made Regina feel absolutely wretched. She was supposed to be the one offering what little comfort she could to Red and not the other way around.

"It's all...m-my fault," she cried, shifting a bit in Red's strong arms so she could rest her head against her lover's chest. Clinging to Red's sweater, she concentrated on the soothing rhythm of Red's heartbeat beneath her ear, strong and steady and unshakeable like an anchor in a storm. "I'm...s-so sorry! I didn't...I didn't want this for you. I swear!"

Dropping a kiss to Regina's head, Red nuzzled her nose into her hair. "I know, baby, I know. I heard you talking to Henry and it stirred up my memories. I remember the last thing you said to me. Do you?"

In the midst of her fear and guilt driven breakdown, Regina could not really remember much of anything. Shaking her head, she sobbed more miserably.

"You said," Red began, and Regina could feel the almost wistful smile form on her lover's face, "that you were sorry. That you would take it all back if you could." Sliding her head southward, Red pressed another gentle kiss to the juncture between Regina's neck and shoulder, causing the distraught woman to shiver. "You also said that you love me. And you know what?" When Red did not immediately continue, Regina shook her head pitifully, feeling further away from the Queen she had once been than ever before; right now, she was little more than a heaping wreck of a woman. "I believed you then and I believe you now. I love you, Regina, but there's something I have to confess." She then pulled away so she could look down into Regina's eyes.

Regina returned the gaze with baited breath. "What's that?" she croaked almost fearfully.

"I'm glad you can't take it back."

"What?"

Regina was astonished. That was the last thing she had expected Red to say. Seeing as how legitimately angry the woman should be, how could she even mean that?

"I know what you're thinking," the intuitive werewolf replied as if privy to Regina's thoughts. "I should be angry and I am but I'm also...not. It's weird and hard to explain. I won't deny that what I went through is...I can't...I can't even think about it. It's too awful. But...I have to concede that I was not an unwilling participant in my dalliances as Ruby."

"Be that as it may, you should still hate me. I'm a monster." Regina's self-loathing was slipping through in the disparagement. "I condemned you to 28 years of violation. I swear, though, I didn't put that into the curse. All I specified was for you and Granny to be together and happy. I don't know why it made you that way. I didn't want you to suffer."

Smiling tenderly despite the pain that lingered in her eyes, Red brushed a strand of hair away from Regina's forehead and then swept it back over her ear. "You didn't have to say that for me to already know it. As for why it happened, I can't say either, but I can't deny the fact that I've always had a healthy sexual appetite, as you _well_ know. I just had you to keep me fulfilled back there.

"But here? Here, I was lonely and frustrated and when the moon was full I felt like I was about to crawl out of my skin. Sex helped to distract me from those things. I still felt dirty afterward and to be honest, I feel even more so now. It might take a while for me to get over this, but I will because even though it hurts, I understand why it happened. What I don't understand is why you didn't do anything. Surely you knew what was happening. You could have stopped it."

"And in so doing, broken my own curse, just as I've done now," Regina replied bitterly, hanging her head in shame. "I'm a prideful woman, Red. That not even you can change. Once I cast the curse, I felt committed to see it through. And yes, I heard rumors, but I knew nothing for sure. I couldn't allow myself to. I knew if I discovered the rumors to be true I would have been compelled to intervene, and as a result, all that I'd sacrificed would have been for naught. I loved you but I was not yet prepared to let go of my vendetta."

"I see," Red replied, almost nonchalantly. Regina could still see the hurt in her eyes. "So you just buried your head in the sand? That's a healthy coping strategy."

"Yes, well, I never claimed to be of sound mental health," Regina retorted. "You knew that when you got involved with me. I was unstable. I suppose I still am to some degree. None of that changes the fact that I love you. And while I know I failed you in the worst way imaginable, I can't help but hope that you might some day forgive me."

Looking tentative, Red bit her lip as she sniffled. "Your kiss broke the curse, Regina," she said as if that should be adequate reassurance.

"I'm aware. That doesn't tell me how you feel."

"What I feel is complicated," Red sighed, scrubbing her face of her tears. "I've already forgiven you but that doesn't mean I'm not hurt and more than a little angry."

"You have every right to be hurt," Regina said, tucking her head back against Red's chest, "and angry, and bitter, and vengeful. But even so, here you are, choosing to be kind to me, forgiving me when I don't deserve it. Nobody else ever did that for me."

Nuzzling against the crown of Regina's head, Red placed a lingering kiss there. "How could I not? I love you more than anything in the whole world. More than my own life. What we have together is worth the pain to me. It always has been. Even back there, I was willing to die for you, so I didn't need for us to break the curse to know that my love for you is true. Having said that, while I wish you hadn't cast it in the first place, this is a storm we can and _will_ weather as long as we do it together."

Regina breathed deeply, inhaling Red's scent, sweetly floral from her favored perfume. Had Regina endured what Red had under the curse, she was fairly sure she would have went on a murderous rampage, but even though Red was positively swimming with hurt, she had set her pain aside in order to comfort Regina. That was just the kind of person Red was, steadfast to the end, always putting those she loves first, most of the time at her own expense. Red deserved better but Regina was a selfish woman. She needed her werewolf too much to let her go again.

"Despite everything, I'm _so_ glad you're here, Red."

Placing a kiss atop Regina's head, Red mumbled, "me, too," and then tilted her head to rest her cheek on Regina's crown. They sat like that for a long time, still and silent in each others presence, neither daring to break the almost peaceful spell of reconciliation that wrapped itself around them, washing away their hurts and fears for the time being.

But all too soon that bubble was shattered by a vicious pounding on Regina's front door. They sprang apart, startled.

"Oh, my," Regina commented, looking sheepishly at Red's chest. "I'm afraid I've cried my makeup off all over your sweater. Perhaps you should go change while I answer the door? You know where I keep your clothes."

Red smiled at that. "Mmhmm. Right next to yours."

Leaning up toward the taller woman, Regina whispered for effect, her eyes shining. "Right where they belong."

Their lips met for only a brief kiss before the pounding on the door repeated itself for the third time.

"Alright!" Regina shouted and then turned back to Red, annoyance plastered across her face. "Whoever it is better have a good reason for beating my front door down or else I may be inclined to turn them into a toad. My magic should have returned, after all, with the breaking of the curse. Might be a good time to get in some practice."

"Please don't," Red pleaded, eyes wide. "Refrain for at least a day with the transformations into squishable critters, okay? For me?" She batted her eyelashes, a move that worked far too often for Regina's taste.

Breathing through her nose, Regina crossed her arms over her chest. "Fine. But I make no promises for tomorrow. These people can be insufferable. You really have no idea."

"Oh, I think I have a pretty good one," Red chuckled before leaning in to place a loving kiss at the corner of Regina's mouth. The Queen's eyes slid closed at the pleasant contact. "Remember," Red then said over her shoulder as she moved away toward the door, "I'm a waitress."

"Try being mayor, dear," Regina retorted after her departing lover and then chuckled to herself. How Red could find the strength to have good humor after all of this was beyond her, but that was just Red being Red, an incredible woman with whom Regina was incredibly in love and so very blessed to be loved by in return.


	9. Confrontations

**Standard Disclaimer** : The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately and I will correct them.

 **Chapter 9** – Confrontations

As Red made her way up the stairs, she heard Regina open the door and bark a greeting at their visitor. It was Emma. The two extremely aggressive women immediately began arguing. Knowing she might be needed to diffuse the situation, Red made quick work of venturing to Regina's bedroom to change her top. She paused at the thought. It wasn't just Regina's bedroom anymore...it was _their_ bedroom. Having shared it for so long as only lovers, they would be doing so as partners now, and it was kind of weird to consider since Ruby had not been a woman accustomed to sharing a bed with a person on a regular basis. But even though there was still a certain strangeness to the situation, it was not the kind to produce anxiety, but rather instilled a sense of wonder in Red that made her very eager to start living out the next phase of her life with the woman she loved.

The fact that Regina had asked her to move in at all said a lot about both the state of their relationship and about Regina's readiness to move beyond the scheduled trysts they'd enjoyed both before and during the Curse. Back in the Enchanted Forest, Red hadn't pushed things with her lover because she knew doing so would have put too much pressure on Regina to commit to their relationship in a way she was not yet prepared for, and when Regina got backed into a corner or felt threatened, she lashed out. So for the longest time, Red had tempered her desire to forge a more meaningful commitment with Regina.

Now with that she was free from her false personality, it was not at all surprising that she still wanted to take that next step, and it made her happy to know that Regina felt the same. Of course, there were issues that had to be dealt with, not the least of which was the fallout of the Curse being broken, but to be honest, in light of the relief Red felt at knowing she would never have to leave Regina again, they felt inconsequential. While that temporary obliviousness would certainly pass soon enough, Red was content for now to enjoy her little bubble of calm contentment, so she went about her task with a smooth assurance that belied the turmoil hiding just beneath the surface of both her own mind and the town in general.

Once in the bedroom, Red promptly made her way over to the dresser in order to pull out a white tank top from the 'assigned' drawer she'd sweet-talked Regina into setting aside for her a couple of months before. After replacing her mascara soiled sweater with said tank top, she ran her hands underneath the chain of her necklace, pulling her half-moon pendant out so that it was no longer hidden. For a moment, she fingered the trinket, smiling dumbly as she did so. She loved her necklace far more than its monetary or artistic worth could account for. Since the gifting of it had coincided with dual revelations that changed the course of her life, it had attained the incalculable value of becoming the symbol of her bond with Regina.

At the time Red received the necklace, their relationship was still in its relative infancy as they had only been together a few months, and Red was still content with things as they were. Being the first real relationship she'd ever had, she hadn't wanted to be the one to stir up the pot so to speak. But that changed somewhat when she was given the necklace. Receiving such a gift from someone with whom she had formed a deeply intimate bond left a lasting impression on her. Often after that, she would lift the pendant up to study it, an indescribable warmth sweeping over her as she gazed at the incredibly beautiful piece of jewelry that had been crafted just for her. In moments like that, she felt like a giddy young girl who had just been given her first kiss.

Yet being young and smitten did not mean that Red was a fool, for she had harbored no illusions as to why things happened as they did between herself and the Queen. From the very beginning, she was aware that Regina had likely taken her as a lover both as a means for amusement and because through Red she could strike an indirect blow at Snow. For a while it had been a source of insecurity and frustration for Red, but the more time she spent with Regina, the less the woman's motives began to matter.

Red had always been a simple person with simple expectations, so she had never expected much from Regina, a woman who was notoriously cold and cruel. Yet when presented with the necklace, something considerably shifted. She realized that things had changed enough that in at least some small way Regina had come to care for her beyond her relative usefulness, that the Queen valued Red as a person and as a lover enough to invest a part of herself in the relationship. So to Red, the necklace became indisputable proof of those affections that even Regina, who had a tendency to retract her emotions when things got too intense, could not deny, which she often would by downplaying the significance of the gift whenever she caught Red studying it affectionately.

Before that memorable night, Regina's gifts tended to skew toward the pretentious as was the case most of the time with individuals of nobility or wealth. Whether with expensive wines and chocolates or with dresses that were made of ridiculously rare fabrics that felt like a second skin, the offerings presented to Red were either empty tokens from a Queen to the object of her lust or had been given with a clear subtext attached to them. In other words, they were Regina's not-so-subtle way of wooing Red into her way of living and thinking, of bribing Red into switching sides, something Red would have rather died than do.

The necklace was different, though. Rather than procuring some ostentatious piece of jewelry, Regina chose to create something unique, something tailormade for Red, part of which she crafted herself. Red knew this to be true because she'd watched Regina work on the stone set in the pendant, observing as the fascinatingly powerful Queen concentrated until sweat was beading on her brows while wielding her magic with the delicate precision required to shape such an extraordinary stone. Those efforts always left Regina so drained and lethargic that she didn't even complain or object when Red would boldly cradle the Queen's exhausted body in her arms, then carry her over to the bed, carefully undress her, and usher her under the covers before joining her. Being the kind of woman who did not appreciate or accept such doting, Regina's lack of concern over those tender attentions illustrated the cost she paid to create the stone.

Of course, Red hadn't known it was for her until weeks later, but that didn't stop her from being interested in Regina's work. During the long hours the Queen labored, Red managed to keep mostly quiet, contenting herself by reading a book from Regina's impressive library that had caught her attention or by other soothing pursuits such as darning pairs of socks for her favorite guardsmen, the ones that snuck her treats as the wolf when Regina wasn't looking. Occasionally, though, Red's prominent social side overruled her politeness, and when it did, she got nosy enough to question Regina about what she was working on.

The material, Regina had explained to her in tidbits over the course of her week-long effort, was a rare and nearly priceless stone called ametite. What made it so valuable was that it was harder than any diamond and resistant to nearly all forms of magic, which made it incredibly hard to cut, particularly with magic. But those same properties that made ametite nearly impossible to work with also made it an ideal substance to fashion into a talisman in which to store energy or wards of protection. Since the stone itself was nearly impossible to destroy, logic dictated that its contents would be protected. While shaping such an object with magic was a consuming task, storing energy or wards within it was an exhausting exercise that significantly weakened even a wildly powerful sorceress like Regina.

All of that information had been neat, but Red hadn't understood why her lover was wasting so much time and energy on it when her life had been at present as safe as it ever was. Few wielded more powerful magic than the Queen, and since she was infamously paranoid about potential assassins, she kept herself well protected wherever she went. But since Red was spending increasingly more time in the Dark Palace, the Queen's security had only been enhanced. Twice Red had smelled out assassins who slipped past the guards, identifying the threat via their poisons and neutralizing them long before they ever even got the chance to face Regina's enormously capable personal defenses. As such, Red had been confused why Regina would be making herself a necklace to store wards in. Since she had both Red and her magic at her disposal, she hadn't needed it.

It wasn't until a cold winter night that Red found out the real reason Regina crafted the stone. After a long night of passion, they were cuddled up together on the comfortably sized lounger in the Queen's study, a warm fire blazing in the hearth nearby. Red could remember how peaceful she'd felt at that moment, laying there in Regina's arms, feeling properly cherished. Regina was always an attentive lover, but that night the Queen had seemed exceptionally driven to the point that it seemed like her sole aim in life to give Red pleasure above all she had ever experienced, a goal which she _very_ successfully achieved.

But beyond that, Red had noted that something else was different in Regina that night. Normally, Regina was a woman who hid her feelings behind iron walls, and – lest she was in a good mood – withheld compliments from even those who sorely deserved them. But that night, the Queen had seemed more open and expressive with her emotions, more free with her admiration than Red had ever seen. Red might have thought it some kind of game the Queen was playing except for the fathomless brown eyes which were revealing parts of Regina that had heretofore been kept secret.

With Regina having lost that perpetual edge that always seemed to exist in her expressive orbs, Red could detect no ulterior motives lurking underneath the surface, no long term plans being seeded through skilled touches and fervent kisses. That clever, plotting unpredictability that always seemed to be present in Regina was gone, as was the coal black darkness of her irises which were typical of the vicious and hate-filled woman she could be and often was. Instead there was a warmth present in Red's lover that shimmered with halting devotion and bespoke a tentative though heartfelt affection.

That night, along with her breath, Red's heart was properly stolen away, never to be returned.

"I have something for you, darling," she recalled Regina saying as they lay together well into the night.

With Red on her side facing away toward the fire and one one of Regina's arms stretched out underneath her neck, she felt the Queen lift herself slightly and lean over in order to trace a well-manicured fingernail down Red's hip and thigh. Between placing open-mouthed kisses on Red's arm, shoulder, and neck, she said, "And unlike my other gifts, this one is more...personalized."

Red had detected a hint of uncertainty in Regina's voice which was very unusual for such a larger than life and incredibly self-assured person. All dressed up in her regalia with shadowy make-up applied to accentuate her eyes and her cheeks, it was a sight to behold when Regina was on the prowl, making deliberate steps that flared her incredibly well proportioned hips, her gaze smoldering and eliciting all kinds of aggressively lustful emotions in Red. To Red, Regina was hot as hell twenty-four hours a day, but her confidence was one of her sexiest attributes.

"I know you're not one for grand gestures or extravagant gifts, so I wanted to give you something unique as a token of my affection," Regina had continued, working her hand over Red's hip to smooth over the skin low on her belly. Red shuddered at the intimate nature of the contact. "I'm not normally one for such things but I've come to trust you enough that I can admit how important you've become to me. So, I hope this gift adequately reflects that."

After lifting her hand from Red's abdomen, Regina snapped her fingers and in a puff of purple smoke, the necklace appeared in her palm. The licking flames of the fire glittered off the polished metal, creating an almost hypnotizing effect, and as she stared at the gorgeous piece of jewelry, the ametite stone in the pendant began to glow, pulsating in concert with the accelerating beat of her heart.

"It's beautiful," she had replied, nearly in tears due to recognizing the stone. "Isn't this what you were working on a few weeks ago?" Regina hummed her confirmation, nodding against Red's arm as she placed another lingering kiss there. Red looked up with awestruck eyes. "You were making this for me?"

"I was," Regina replied, smiling softly.

After shifting in her lover's embrace so that she was now on her back, Red studied her lover. Hovering over Red with her silken ebony tresses hanging down in loose and gentle curls, and with her head tilted just so, Regina had looked more a vision than ever before. In that moment, she seemed almost otherworldly by the way her olive skin glowed in the firelight and with how her dark eyes gleamed with uncharacteristic levels of affection. The gaze Regina regarded with was so intense that Red felt her throat and chest simultaneously constrict.

"I don't know what to say," Red eventually croaked as she fingered the pendant absentmindedly, all the while alternating between looking down at it and then back up at Regina.

"Well," Regina said apprehensively, "does it at least please you enough that I may put it on you?"

Breathing deeply, Red nodded and lifted up a bit so that so that Regina could maneuver her arms around her neck in order to fix the necklace in place. Once done, the Queen smoothed it down over her chest, her finger gently stroking the pendant that was nestled between the valley of her breasts.

"Perfect," she'd commented, and Red was unsure whether she'd meant the necklace or her breasts (she was aware that Regina especially appreciated the latter), but she was so becoming so aroused that she figured either was fine.

Returning her head to rest upon Regina's arm, Red stared up wordlessly, unable to process much beyond the flush of heated emotions that she was feeling. As her eyes took in the beauty of the woman above her, she realized with startling clarity that she loved Regina, and not in an ordinary kind of way, but in an all-consuming one that made her want to cast everything aside, no matter how badly it would hurt those she loved, so that she could stay with her Queen for the rest of her life. With that realization came awareness that she was long past the point of no return, and that eventually she was going to have to make a choice between Regina and her friends.

Because Red was already lost to the Queen who had staked claim over her heart, the results of that choice would leave both her Granny and Snow devastated, for there was no other option. To give Regina up and walk away from the person who had come to mean more to Red than anything and anyone else in the world would mean inflicting a wound upon herself that would never heal. And with the wolf having grown every bit as inextricably attached to Regina as the woman was, Red knew severing the tie would mean risking not just her heart but her dearly won control. As such, it was much too late for her to attempt extricating herself from Regina's clutches, she had already been too far gone.

"Well, say something," Regina had then pleaded from where she half hovered above Red, looking strangely nervous. It was adorable but Red withheld commenting on that.

"Sorry," she apologized sheepishly, "I'm just overwhelmed." Which was true. It was impressive that she'd been able to formulate even that lackluster response.

A tentative smile formed on Regina's lips at that. "In a good way, I hope."

"In the best way."

Unable to restrain herself anymore Red had then reached out to rest a hand on her lover's cheek, which prompted Regina to lean into the touch so that she could place a kiss on Red's palm. With that simple kiss, warmth spread back down through Red's body in a rush and all too soon words were forgotten as lips collided and hearts and bodies began to tangle once more in that intimate and age-old dance, expressing things through physical action that could not be spoken in any other way and until both women were left utterly spent.

To Red, the necklace was a reminder of that night, the night she had accepted her choice for better or for worse. For a long time before that, she'd struggled with uncertainty about what she would do if Snow discovered her liaisons with Regina. Wavering between the two, she'd felt caught in an impossible situation. Any choice she made would leave someone she cared for in bitter pain. But after that night, Red's uncertainty was wiped away by the realization that no matter how much she would always love her Granny and Snow, her heart forever belonged to Regina alone. In the short time Red spent with her mother, she had learned that once a werewolf chooses a mate only death could part them, so along with her heart came her eternal loyalty.

Come what may, Red had determined then and there to stand by Regina, to fight for her, kill for her, and if it was required, die for her, and just as there was no going back then, there was no going back now. Being driven by that reminder, Red started to make her way back downstairs, intent on ensuring Regina knew once and for all that she had nothing to worry about in regards to Red's love and fidelity.

Upon reaching the top of the stairs, Red heard Regina and Emma still arguing, and with a forbearing sigh, she paused to listen in.

"Look, Henry sounded upset when he called me," Emma stated accusingly, and Red could hear the frown in her voice. "Said that he was right all along and that you had admitted to being the 'Evil Queen'. I thought we had made some real progress here, Regina."

"We have," Regina replied tersely, "but your tone right now is severely threatening that progress."

"Hey, don't blame me," Emma shot back, "I'm not the one filling our son's head full of lies!"

A tension descended over the house that Red could have cut with a knife. Magic. Though incredibly faint, she could smell the familiar tang and recognize the pull it was exerting on her mind. _No, Regina,_ she silently pleaded.

"I wasn't lying, Miss Swan," Regina gritted out as the nearly indistinguishable tingle of magic fizzled out. Whether Regina was unable to properly summon it or because she had made a conscious choice not to attack Emma, Ruby wasn't sure, but she was relieved either way. She was, however, most assuredly surprised by Regina's next words. "Unfortunately, everything in Henry's book is actually true," she said, sounding weary.

A breath whooshed out of Emma's lungs. Obviously the woman had expected the open admission about as much as Red had. "What? I don't believe you. What's _really_ going on here, Regina?"

"I've just told you!"

Emma's derisive scoff reverberated through the entryway. "And why should I believe you? Not too long ago, you sent Henry to a shrink to get that crap out of his head and as if that was not bad enough, now you're spouting it. So, what gives? Is there some kind of mass delusion going on this town or something and it finally hit you, too? 'Cause I swear, people are losing their damn minds!"

Red heard Regina's breathing stop. _Strange,_ she thought, _being able to hear_ _something like_ _that_ _again_ _._ She had gotten so used to Ruby's dulled senses that it was an adjustment to ajust to being a werewolf again. The only positive in the situation was that everything hadn't flooded in at once. Her enhanced senses seemed to be coming back slowly, one at a time, as if not quite the same as they used to be.

"What do you mean by that?" Regina then asked Emma, clearly concerned. Red understood Regina's apprehension. With the curse broken, people's memories would have returned to them, which meant trouble for the person who was responsible: Regina.

The once Evil Queen and current Mayor of Storybrooke now had a town full of angry people who would be after her head with a vengeance, which conflicted Red in a way she never again wanted to be since Snow would be foremost among them. Back in the Enchanted Forest, Red's loyalties had been divided between her friend and her lover for over a year. In the end, she hadn't been forced to make a choice because of Snow's compassion, but even so, she knew what that choice ultimately would have been. Her love for Regina was absolute, and as such would have compelled her to act in the Queen's defense, no matter that in doing so she would have to stand against friends for whom she would gladly give her life. Those divided loyalties had been an almost constant source of stress for Red in that year leading up to the curse and now, they were returning with even more acute intensity due to Emma being thrown into the mix.

To Emma, though, it must have seemed disconcerting to have everyone she knew in town suddenly become someone else, like everyone in town had been suffering from some severe and unheard of form of mass dissociative identity disorder that was suddenly and instantly cured. As an unbeliever and an admitted skeptic, Emma was clearly struggling to make sense of things, which was to be expected. From what Red knew of the woman, though, she was convinced that Emma would adapt quickly. Red just hoped her friend would at least be willing to talk things through with Regina lest they find themselves on opposing sides, something that would break Red's heart.

As Ruby, she had loved Emma and as Red, she still did. The blonde spitfire was a steadfast confidante and above all, a good person, the kind that would rise up to fill the role she had been cast into even though she didn't want to. Emma, Red realized, had become her best friend, having taken Snow's place due to the distance that the Curse put between them living under the curse. There was even a time Red had flirted with the idea of taking the friendship to the next level, but then Regina had made her move, sweeping Ruby off her feet before she even had a chance to become acclimated to standing. In more than one way, Red was glad of it, because it would have been awfully awkward to come to herself realizing she was having sex with her goddaughter. The thought of it made her shudder.

Still, even though she was no longer Ruby, Emma remained important to Red, which made it painful to contemplate facing Emma as an adversary if it came to that. But if such was the price she had to pay to be with Regina, she was more than willing to do so. She had lost Regina once. She wasn't going to allow anything or anyone to ever separate them again.

"I mean," Emma then explained to Regina, "I saw Mary Margaret and David in town on the way, and they acted like a couple of lunatics when they saw me drive by, waving and hollering, looking at me like they actually believed they were my...you know. But that's not all. People were hugging and kissing like they had been separated for years, right out on Main Street! It was freaking weird."

"Well, that's because they hadn't seen one another in 28 years," Regina stated casually. "Not in a true sense."

After sighing, Red heard the shuffling of Emma's feet. "I still don't understand what the hell you're trying to tell me."

"Are you dense, Miss Swan?" Regina growled. "Let me lay it out for you. This town was, as Henry posited, cursed by me, the _Evil_ _Queen_. That curse has now been broken, and as such, very soon all of those people you mentioned are going to be coming to kill me. Thus the reason I had Henry call you. You must take him away from here, Emma. Take him away from Storybrooke. Go back to Boston and never return."

Red heard Emma scoff angrily. "Now I definitely know something's wrong. You've lost your damn mind, and while I think the Curse stuff is a load of crap, you're sure as hell right that I need to get Henry out of this house." Emma's voice moved closer as she spoke, and Red heard the rustling of fabric against leather as Emma shouldered by Regina. She appeared at the bottom of the stairs a second later, her face a picture of frustrated anger. "Henry!" she yelled, looking up at the landing to find Red staring down at her. "Oh! Ruby. What are you doing here?"

"This is her home now," Regina answered from behind Emma, her face heavily guarded.

Emma's eyebrows rose at Red, thinking her to still be Ruby. "Is that so?"

"It is," Red answered and made her way downstairs with a confidence in her gait that Ruby would have lacked. Emma looked at her curiously but said nothing.

"How are you feeling, dear," Regina asked Red once she had joined her lover, the mask she so impressively wore while in public holding despite the tremulous fear Red could see in her eyes and detect in her breathing and heart rate.

"Much better," Red replied, smiling as she deliberately fingered the pendant of her necklace. The action drew Regina's attention, whose face softened at catching sight of it. That is, at least, until Red heard Henry's door open and subsequently slam, which caused Regina's face to shift back into trepidation. After a moment, the plodding of heavy boyish footsteps entered the hallway, and once he had flown down the stairs, Henry barreled into Emma at full tilt, his eyes wide with frenzied excitement that was mixed with quite a bit of anxiety.

"It's real, just like I told you," he said in a rush, his face reddening. Glancing over at his mother, his eyes narrowed hatefully for the briefest of moments, causing Regina to flinch. But then his demeanor shifted when he took a moment to really study the woman who had raised him and loved him, becoming aware – just as Red already was – of how all of this was affecting her, for it was clear by her posture that Regina was tormented by her mistakes and as uncertain as she had ever been about the future.

As if wearied and stricken by what he saw, Henry sighed. _A boy that young_ , Red thought, _should not look so old_. "You really did cast the curse didn't you, Mom?" he asked.

Despite looking wounded and extremely skittish, Regina did not bother lying. "Yes."

Big eyes implored her for an explanation. Red knew there was none, though the tempered curiosity just beneath the surface of his next question indicated a tentative willingness to hear Regina's side of the story. "Why?"

Red's whole body stilled. She had a feeling in her gut that this was one of those moments that lives hinged on, a moment that might very well change everything, not only for Regina and Henry, but for Red and Emma and everyone else in Storybrooke as well. It was not hard to guess how Regina might react if Henry walked out on her for good, for even though she had expressly told Emma to take him away, Red knew that deep down inside she needed Henry as much, if not more, than she needed Red. Losing her son for good might finally be what broke Regina for good, and Red was acutely aware of the fact that the last time Regina had been broken she wound up cursing an entire realm to another world.

Fearing for her lover, Red looked at Henry to gauge his mood. Instead of seeing hurt, anger, or betrayal, she saw something else in his eyes, something that made her proud. It was as if he was searching for a reason, any reason to forgive his mother if she could but give him one. It became clear to Red that in the time he was in his room alone, he had really thought the situation through more carefully, giving him pause about acting in a knee-jerk manner.

Henry was an extremely intelligent boy, and as such had obviously realized that something wasn't adding up about his precious book's depiction of Regina. The Evil Queen he had read about was very different from the doting mother who had expended herself for his sake, cherishing him over all else for the past ten years, a point which was further underscored by the last five months. The Regina who had raised him was not the same one as had created Storybrooke in order to destroy all happy endings. That woman's happy ending had been to take away everyone elses, but the Regina standing in front of Henry now, clutching her hands tightly at her waist as if fearing the judgment he were about to pass upon her, was a woman who had carved out a happy ending not predicated on the suffering of others.

Quite contrary to what Regina had thought it to be, her happy ending wound up being adopting a baby boy, loving him and raising him into a fine young man, and finding love, which she had with Red. In both both aspects, she had succeeded all on her own, without the aid of magic, and without overtly harming a single person.

And though Regina had her faults and made plenty of mistakes, Red thought her to be a good mother, one she would be proud to have raise her own children. Without any help from friends or from a partner, Regina had taught Henry to be a healthy, intelligent, well-read and relatively well-adjusted kid who, apart from a few semi-recent deviations, behaved and minded his manners. Ruby had always enjoyed being around him, and not just because she'd thought his mother to be the most beautiful creature on earth, but for his own sake. When he wasn't all worked up about curses and being angry at his mother, he was a good kid that was fun to be around. Much of that was, she thought, due to Regina.

As far Regina herself was concerned, Red thought she was about as close to perfect as possible. Because of how much she loved the woman, it would be disingenuous to ignore the obvious bias, but even taking that into consideration, from her very personal perspective there was no one on earth that could love the way Regina did. Having seen and experienced that love, Red now understood Regina's reluctance to give her heart away when they'd been together back in the Enchanted Forest, for when Regina gave her heart, she gave it all the way. Because of that, when it got broken the devastation was total. This new understanding went a long way toward explaining why Regina had become the Evil Queen, and that is not to mention Rumplestiltskin's nefarious interference.

That Regina was still capable of such enormous emotion begged the question as to whether she was truly evil even at her worst. After all, if an evil person could tap into such vast reserves of love, what did that say about love as an emotion worth having? Was love really something so wonderful, really something so valuable and precious enough to fight for if someone intrinsically evil could experience it in its fullness? Red didn't think so, and she got the sneaking suspicion that Henry was coming around to the same opinion, which was a good thing judging by how tenuous a grip Regina seemed to have on her psyche at the moment. The past hour had been hell on the woman, and the worst kind of it: one of her own design.

"I made a mistake," Regina then admitted, flushing with shame before her son's scrutiny. "Remember how I told you that Ruby and I were together before I cast the Curse?" Henry nodded. With an apologetic look to Red, Regina continued. "I thought for a long time that she was only infatuated with me, that she didn't really love me and was trying to trick me on Snow White's behalf."

"Snow White. That would be my mother, correct?" Emma interjected with trademark sarcasm. "You know, just to keep things straight and in context."

"As I was saying," Regina ignored Emma, rolling her eyes, "because I didn't trust her, I went ahead with my plans to cast the Curse. You see, Henry, everything I have ever loved has been taken away from me: my first love, my freedom, my innocence. When I learned about the Curse, I thought it to be my last recourse, my only means of obtaining any form of happiness, however inadequate. I realize now how wrong I was, as I did at the last before the Curse took effect. Ruby did love me but it was too late. I had already cast the Curse and was powerless to stop it."

For a moment, Henry seemed to contemplate her answer. "And what if you could have...stopped it? If you could go back now, would you?"

At that, Regina knelt before Henry, her eyes pleading. "I wanted to then, but knowing what I do now, I wouldn't do anything differently," she said. Henry puffed up in anger but before he could start castigating her, Regina continued. "But only because of you, sweetheart." All of the anger deflated out of Henry at that, causing his eyes to soften, along with Emma's, though the Sheriff remained tense. "I love you and would never do anything that would jeopardize you being in my life. Getting to be your mother has been my greatest privilege."

Red watched as a measure of acceptance formed in Henry's expression and his posture somewhat relaxed. It was evident he was still angry, but at least he believed that his mother loved him. It was a step in the right direction. But then his gaze shifted to Red.

"But what about Ruby? You loved her, too, and look what you did. You cursed her. And not just that, 'cause I've heard things..." he trailed off, eyes wide that he had even started down that line of conversation.

Regina's spine straightened, her eyes hardening. From a few paces away, Emma stiffened as well, casting worried eyes at Red.

"What kinds of things?" Regina asked.

"Things about her that people shouldn't say," Henry replied, flushed with embarrassment as he turned apologetic eyes up at Red.

For a second, Red blanched. That Henry had even the vaguest idea of what she'd done while cursed was mortifying, though she recovered her composure quickly. However true the rumors might be, she did not want to lend credence to them, both for Henry's sake and her own. Contemplating what she'd been through right now would only drive her further into the dark place she'd almost sank into when the curse broke. So, pretty much, she just wanted to ignore what had been insinuated. Yet, seeing Regina's aghast expression, she felt compelled to respond.

"I won't lie to you, Henry," she said uncomfortably, "bad things happened to me here." When Regina looked over at her with an ambivalent expression, appearing both unsure of what Red was going to say and concerned as to where the conversation might be headed, Red smiled reassuringly. Regina had good reason to be concerned about her addressing the issue directly, but Red felt it necessary if only to keep Henry from digging further into the issue, which she knew to be a likely outcome if his inquiry was not satisfied.

The reason for Regina's nervousness was not so simple as the subject matter, but was also rooted in previous experience with Ruby's unique way of handling awkward situations. Under her cursed personality, Red had lacked tact in some areas, a constant source of complaint for the prim and proper Mayor that thrived on keeping up appearances. Regina often quipped that Ruby's lack of decorum was why they didn't go out much, which was probably true. As Ruby, she was sometimes painfully oblivious to notions of etiquette and propriety, but even her cursed self knew better than to discuss some things in front of kids, such as decades worth of skeevy behavior being inadvertently forced upon her.

Being so young, Henry wouldn't be able to understand such things, nor should he have to be required to. He was just a kid. Although he had certainly been through some crazy stuff these past few months, in all of the ways that mattered most, he was still innocent. Such a bright boy with a limitless future at his disposal did not deserve to have Red's problems heaped onto his own, and more importantly, Red felt his innocence was something worth preserving at all costs, a sentiment she knew his mother would vehemently agree with.

Sighing, she wrestled for a moment with what to say. She wanted to help Henry understand but not at the expense of discretion. She needed her explanation to be as vague yet effective as possible.

"Some of those things will haunt me for a long time," she began carefully, noting that all eyes were attentively on her. "There are memories of my life during the Curse that I would do almost anything to forget, the kind that will probably give me nightmares. I was...compelled to act in ways that I never would have, ways that make me sad and angry and want to curl up in a corner somewhere and cry when I think about them." The hurt that swam over Regina's face at that statement curled Red's stomach but she knew she needed to be truthful in a way that would best drive home her point. She pressed on. "But having said that, your Mom is right, because even though I have all of these terrible memories, I wouldn't change anything either. A lot of people might disagree, most will certainly not understand, but to me, the Curse was not all bad. In fact, I think it was for the best."

Henry looked genuinely shocked at her statement, as did Emma. "How can you say that? It took away everything from you!" His disbelief was nearly tangible.

"But did it?" she replied, giving him an easy smile born of increasing confidence. It was strange feeling so calm when talking about such a disturbing topic, especially when just a few minutes ago, she had been sobbing her heart out while her emotions ran roughshod over her like a herd of wild buffalo. But when she'd heard Regina talking to Henry, something clicked. By confessing that her love for Red existed even before the Curse was cast, Regina had in her own way admitted regret that her pride had caused her to make a mistake, and that seemingly simple admission acted as a trigger to jog Red's memory. As Henry walked away and Regina collapsed in sorrow over what was happening to her family, the last night before the curse flashed through Red's mind, and along with it, Regina's heartfelt declarations.

Though it was not enough to erase the pain of what happened during the Curse, knowing Regina was hurting on her behalf was enough for Red to realize that she was not to blame for Ruby's questionable character. Aside from the wolf, those unrestrained sexual urges Ruby had battled every month came from somewhere other than the woman who cast the curse, and Red had a pretty good idea of who that was.

Having been made aware that Rumplestiltskin had authored the Dark Curse from the man himself, it occurred to Red that it was altogether possible – and even likely – that he had provided himself a loophole to augment things to his liking, a backdoor of a type that would allow him to slip in unnoticed and supersede Regina's command over his creation. If true, she had to wonder why he would utilize that loophole to warp her into a raging slut, which would hurt not only Red but Regina as well. _Maybe_ _it was_ _in_ _retaliation for Belle,_ she guessed _._

Upon returning home after meeting Belle for the first time, Regina had told Red about her plan to trick the bookish maid into trying to break Rumple's curse, and though Red was not able to dissuade Regina from her decided course of action, after much discussion she was at least able to convince Regina to provide the girl with a new life should the plan go awry. When it did, both Red and Regina helped Belle to settle in somewhere far away from the monstrous man she had somehow managed to fall in love with. Where Belle was now, Red could not guess, but wherever it was, she hoped that the kind young woman had the good sense to stay away.

Still, even though he had authored the Curse and likely exacerbated its effect on her, Red couldn't cast all of the blame on Rumplestiltskin, for some of Ruby's behavior was her own cross to bear. Once Regina had given Red a taste of what sex could be like, she quickly developed quite an insatiable appetite. She'd figured that in all likelihood, her very healthy libido was strongly inspired by the wolf, but with the Queen's towering, authoritarian presence to bend the wolf to her will, and with her practiced hands and hot mouth to satisfy Red in every way, it didn't really matter where her abundant sexual energy came from. Sex with Regina sated the animalistic cravings of the wolf in way that she wasn't sure anyone else could, and it made Red extraordinarily glad that she had ventured out in the Queen's lands that day, if only so that Regina could be her first mate...and her last.

But under the Curse, things were different. As Ruby, she was disconnected from the wolf and sundered from Regina, so she hadn't really been aware of why she became so compelled to seek out carnal gratification when the moon was full, just that she _needed_ it with an almost savage intensity. For most of the month she was able to maintain enough control to keep her raging libido under wraps – though admittedly there were a few casual flings during the weeks in which the moon was not waning or waxing – but those few brief affairs were nothing in nature like the drunken, marathon sexcapades she regularly indulged in during the handful of days that would ordinarily constitute Wolf's Time back in the Enchanted Forest.

When the moon was full, Ruby had felt like her skin was crawling with so much energy that she could barely sit still. Everything ached of a morning, particularly the more sensitive parts of her anatomy, to the degree that even giving herself release time and again did not help to temper her boiling blood. During the evenings, she would pace the floor of her apartment, wearing out a trail in the floor that was still there at present, trying to control her keen impulse to hit The Rabbit Hole and hunt for a victim with which to sate her primal urges. It never worked. By the time 9 or 10 pm rolled around, she would be in her closet, digging out the most revealing outfits she owned until one caught her attention. Soon thereafter, she would drive to the bar, dance with anyone who dared to chance an encounter with a predator on the prowl, get plastered once she was tired of that, and then when the bar was about to close, pick out the most attractive person there to seduce. In all of the years of the Curse, whether male or female, 20 or 50 years old, no one ever turned away Ruby's advances. The wolf _always_ got what she wanted.

Now that the Curse was lifted, Red realized that her wolf had been acting out in the only way she could, asserting herself through provocative dress and aggressive sexual behavior. Having been provided the opportunity by Rumpelstiltskin to affect her moods and behavior, in lieu of shifting, the wolf's only available method of self-expression was to live out an unfortunately apt Nine Inch Nails song. It still disgusted Red to think that she had slept with so many people, but having a good idea what had caused her to act that way helped take the sharp edge off of the hurt. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how one looked at things), she was accustomed to dealing with the fallout from the wolf, so she was equipped to deal with this latest violation, which said a lot about how tragic her life had been in general.

Yet even though she had been doubly cursed for however many years the Dark Curse had lasted, only one of those was attributable to Regina, and it, for the most part, was not so bad at all. Storybrooke was a great little town in a pretty great world. The modern life afforded here, stuck as they were in one era, was a far cry better than anything she'd experienced back in the Enchanted Forest. From indoor plumbing to electricity and from movies to music, the many amenities of this world had spoiled Red to the point that even the privileged life she lead in Snow's castle seemed unbearable in retrospect. So, barring a few obvious exceptions, she was grateful to be in Storybrooke, Maine. Red loved the life Regina had created for her and the citizens of the Enchanted Forest, and now that she and her Queen were together once more as they should be, she had no desire to abandon it – ever.

Her patient smile still in place, Red crouched down in front of Henry and then brushed his boyish bangs out of his face. He blushed at the action, causing Red to chuckle.

"You're young, Henry," she said gently, "and you got to grow up in a world with conveniences that I never had. I know it's hard to imagine because of how idyllic the storybook makes the Enchanted Forest seem, but no matter what anyone else may tell you in the days to come, it is not a nice place. It's dangerous and wild, cruel and unforgiving. Even a good life there is hard."

Her gaze turned up to Emma, who was looking down in awe, as if Red mentioning her childhood in the old world caused it to finally dawn on her that all of this was really true. Giving a confirming nod to her friend, Red stood and returned to stand next to Regina, then slipped her hand into Regina's delicately smooth one to link their fingers together. Before returning her focus to Henry, Red looked over at her lover to see her biting her lip with an overflowing amount of gratitude in her eyes. The expression was both an acceptance of Red's decision to confront Henry with the truth and her encouragement to continue with the brutal honesty.

"I grew up poor – really poor. Dirt poor, really," Red then told Henry, feeling Regina squeeze her hand in support. Her girlfriend knew how touchy a subject this was.

At first, the wealth disparity between herself and Regina had been a notable point of contention between them. Regina had always wanted to spoil her and Red was too prideful to accept most of the gifts she was given. The few she kept were because Regina had given them out of honest affection and not out of an ostentatious display of her station, the necklace foremost among those offerings. But over time, their wildly disparate upbringings lost relevance in the face of feelings that superseded all sense of socioeconomic status.

As something beautiful bloomed into life between them, it began to matter less and less to Red that she had been born a peasant while Regina was born into the nobility, and the same was true for Regina. Those kinds of things no longer seemed to be obstacles but rather mere facts that had no bearing on how they felt about each other. When all Red wanted was to be with Regina, no matter the cost, the class she was born into suddenly lost all relevance. Love, Red had discovered, did not see such human artificiality, for it was not concerned about material things but about forging deep, lasting, fulfilling bonds between people.

But just because their differing levels of social status did not hinder their relationship, it did not mean that they had no influence on them as individuals, an impossibility proven in this world by the nature vs. nurture debates. While genetics had a part to play in what kind of character a person developed, the environment a person grew up in had at the very least an equal influence, of which Red was an example. The hard life she had been born into had shaped her into the person she became, and Red could not feel even a little sorry for that.

"When I was a little girl," she continued in her effort to enlighten her lover's son, "Granny got sick for a while and we had to move into this little one room cabin that got so cold in the winter that we had to sleep huddled up on the floor just to be near the only heat source we had – a pitifully inadequate stove that just barely kept the chill off. That winter it got so bad that I didn't really know what it felt like to be warm until spring came again.

"Granny eventually got better, but she lost so much business while she was sick that we had to stay there up until the time I was around your age. Thankfully, Granny's chickens, knitting, and cooking services finally started to make enough money for her to build us a nicer place. Somehow we made it until then but there were some rough times in between. I can honestly say that I know what it feels like to not eat anything more than a morsel or two of bread per day for a whole week, all the while feeling miserable with each bite because I had to watch Granny starve and suffer just so I could eat. Can you say the same?"

Looking ashamed, Henry shook his head. Red hated making him feel that way but she needed him to understand the unintentional gift his mother had given the people of the Enchanted Forest, herself included. To her relief, Regina seemed to understand what she was going for and refrained from chastising Red for making her son feel bad.

"I'm not trying to be mean, sweetie," Red reassured him soothingly, rubbing his arm in a gentle motion. "I just want you to understand." Leveling her eyes on Emma, Red then posed the same challenge to her friend. "And how about you, Em?"

"Can't say that I ever had it quite that bad," the blonde replied, "but I know what it's like to be hungry all the time."

Red nodded. She was somewhat generally aware of Emma's lousy childhood. Though tight-lipped about her past, Emma had shared enough tidbits to Ruby for Red to understand how bad it had been at times.

"Then you know what Henry has here is a blessing," she said, watching Emma open her mouth to object but shut it immediately afterward when realizing she had no leg to stand on. "And I'm not just talking about my childhood either. I dealt with things back there, lost people and did things that have left permanent scars on me, that made me feel like a monster and question whether or not I was actually a good person."

With Red's voice swimming with emotion, Regina let go of her hand to begin to soothe the small of her back, tenderly rubbing circles there that helped take the sting off of very bitter memories. Looking up at Regina with unadulterated love, she said, "Your mom understands because she lived it, too," and then turned back to Henry. "And because of all that, I would never go back there. _Never_. I would rather die. I love my life here, and someday people are going to realize that despite your Mom's bad intentions, they do, too. So, while it might seem impossible, something good did come out of her cursing us here."

"And what about me?" Emma asked, glancing between Red and Regina. Her looks at Regina were more pointed, Red noted, more angry. "Let's say that all of this is true. What about me having to grow up alone and unwanted in foster care? I spent my childhood learning that people couldn't be trusted, that families were all messed up and that love was a lie. I was abandoned on the side of the road like trash for Christ's sake. How is that good?!"

Red bit her lip, understanding Emma's turmoil but needing to redirect it from being fully blamed on Regina. "It's terrible what happened to you, Emma," she said, "and you can blame Regina if you like, 'cause she certainly had a part to play which she's not denied. But the situation was not as simple as you might think. There were choices that could have been made to spare you some of that pain."

Emma frowned, her brows drawn together. "Such as?"

"For one," Red supplied, "your parents didn't have to put you in that wardrobe."

She hated throwing her friends under the bus, so to speak, but the truth was the truth. Red knew why Snow had chosen to send Emma through the wardrobe but that did not change the fact that the option of keeping Emma with her was available if she so desired. Emma, however, did not seem to appreciate that fact.

Glowering, the Sheriff crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive posture. _Good_ , Red thought. At least on some subconscious level, Emma had started to accept the possibility that Mary Margaret Blanchard and David Nolan were really Snow White and Prince Charming, her long lost parents.

"Are you seriously trying to insinuate that this is their fault?"

"No, I'm not," Red soothed, her eyes earnest. "I'm saying that things are complicated. Your parents love you, Emma, and they did what they thought was best for you, but there were consequences to that choice, your lousy childhood being most prominent among them. You have to understand that you're not the only one here who had a terrible childhood. I've told you part of mine but if you need more, come over some time and I'll tell you the rest, or Regina can tell you about hers. The life you lived in this world might have been tough but I guarantee it wasn't as bad as what we went through."

Clearing his throat, Henry tried to get their attention. "Guys..."

"How dare you," Emma erupted, almost snarling with anger. "You have no idea what it was like. I…"

"Guys!" Henry yelled this time. They turned to find him standing in front of the front door, which was now wide open. Apparently everyone had been so absorbed by the tense atmosphere that they hadn't even heard Henry open it.

"What is it, Henry?" Regina asked.

Henry pointed outside, his face showing a startling amount of fear. "Look."

Following his finger, Red peered out the door. When she did her eyes widened, for outside Regina's house, a large mob had gathered. The steady hum of their chatter wafted into the house, and as she took in their faces, she noted that nearly all of them were twisted by irrational rage. Replete as they were with every type of weapon imaginable from guns and knives to pitchforks and baseball bats, reasoning with them was going to be a delicate if not impossible task. The only problem was that Regina did not do delicate, nor did Red really, but between the two of them, something was going to have to be done to resolve the situation lest things escalate beyond control. That many people could not be fought off, not when Red had no control over her wolf and Regina's magic was at best unreliable because it was just coming back to her or at worst not there at all.

Realizing that someone had to get Henry to safety, Red turned on the Sheriff, fixing her with an urgently pleading look. "Take Henry out the back door," she ordered. " _Now_ , Emma!"

Having caught sight of the mob out on Regina's front lawn, Emma did not question the command. Laying her hands on Henry's shoulders, she began to usher him away, protesting though he was, but not before looking back at Red with a silent promise that she would return if she was able. The look reassured Red that even though Emma was upset, she still valued their friendship. Red just prayed her friend was able to make good on her silent promise because she had the sinking suspicion that things between the mob and Regina were going to get ugly very quickly. The possibility seemed slim, though, since Henry's safety was of the utmost importance. And seeing as Red was not sure where Emma would take him in order to guarantee he stayed safe, she could not guess as to whether or not Emma could get him there and return in a feasible amount of time to help rein in the mob.

 _The further away the better_ , Red thought, even though that would leave her and Regina to deal with the mob by themselves. She would much rather risk her own safety than Henry's.

Speaking of Regina, once Emma had Henry out the back door to safety, she wasted no time in pulling herself up to her full height. After squaring her shoulders, she then strode out the door like the Queen that she was. Not bothering to wait for Red to accompany her, she approached the frothing crowd gathered around her porch, her face twisted in haughty pride.

"Can I help you?" she asked, stepping up into Victor Whale's face with a condescending smirk.

Scowling, the mysterious doctor of whom Red knew next to nothing aside from his disconcerting leers and unwelcome advances replied, "That smirk isn't gonna last forever, Regina. You took everything from us, and now..."

Regina scoffed derisively. "What? Now you're gonna kill me?"

"Eventually," Whale snarled, "but first, you need to suffer."

Regina's smirk returned with a vengeance. "Listening to you has been enough suffering for all of us." Looking out at the crowd in general, she then dismissed Whale as if insignificant, her eyes hardening into two points of steel as she began to lift her arms dramatically. Reacting out of ingrained instinct to fear their Queen, the crowd cowered back a step in concert. "That's right," Regina grinned. "You wanted to see your Queen? Well, my dears, here...she...is."

As she threw her hands forward, Regina tried to cast a spell but nothing happened. Stunned, she looked at her hands in disbelief and then back out to the crowd, who had regathered momentum at the failed attempt to drive them away with magic.

"She's powerless!" One of them yelled, causing their voices to rise in a cacophony of curses and vengeful promises. They began to advance.

"What?" Glancing back at her hands, Regina seemed still unable to understand what had happened. With her so distracted by the failure of her magic, Red stepped a bit closer, prepared to protect her lover from the unruly mob of justifiably angry citizens.

All of the sudden, one of the people in the crowd screamed, "Get her!" just as Whale straightened up to loom over Regina.

"Now," he growled, raising his hands to Regina's neck, "where were we?"

But before he could close them, a man stepped out of the crowd from his left, slipping carefully past the doctor as he towered over Regina, who seemed to have shrunk a foot in a matter of seconds. There was a thin sword in his hand, gripped tightly, and a predatory grin on his lips. Regina was so bewildered by her powerlessness and so focused on a steadily advancing Whale that she didn't see the man approach. It was only as he prepared to strike that her eyes eyes caught sight of him, but being without a means to defend herself and with nowhere to run, there was nothing that she could do.

With a strangled shout, Red burst into action, surging forward with inhuman speed until her body was wedged as a shield between Regina and the deadly blade intent on ending her life. Red didn't even have time to brace herself before she felt the cool metal of the blade slide into the center of her abdomen just beneath her sternum. As it passed through her body, she could feel it brush against her spine before emerging out her back. Almost instantly her legs gave out, rendered useless by the glancing blow to her spinal column, causing her to drop like a rock to the concrete of Regina's porch where she landed with the full force of her weight on her side.

After the impact, she heard Regina cry out her name. Red tried to respond but blood prevented her from speaking as it began to rise up into the column of her throat, threatening to choke her and causing her attempt at words to come out as a sickening gurgle rather than translatable communication. Feeling the blood leak in streams from her mouth, she gasped for air. The pressure on her lungs was so terrific that it felt like an ogre was sitting on her chest. What part of her upper body was still able to move writhed as she fought to get oxygen to her screaming lungs.

Eyes wide with fear, Red caught sight of Regina falling to her knees. "No, no, no!" her distraught lover wailed, tears running down her face only to splash down onto the concrete. The passage of time seemed to have slowed to such a degree that Red could almost see and hear the salty droplets hit and then form into sad, lonely little puddles that made her heart lurch. In synch with the evermore sluggish movement of time, her heartbeat began to decline, though the force of the muscle pounding within her breast reverberated in her ears as if composing a requiem for its host. The tragic melody told Red an awful truth: she was dying and with no magic in Storybrooke, there was little that could be done to save her.

Drowning in her own blood, she began to panic. "I don't want to die," she tried to say, but again it came out as gurgling and gasping.

All of the sudden, a spike of adrenaline hit her, speeding up time once more and giving her the strength to heave her chest in an effort to draw precious oxygen into her lungs. As her body thrashed, she felt hands on her shoulders, holding her steadily down, along with the sounds of more shouting, though this time it was not just Regina. Red thought she heard Snow and Charming as well.

 _Great_ , she thought morbidly around a wet, wheezing breath, _an audience for my demise._

Dots began to swim in her vision as her head grew light to the point that she thought it might float away. She could still feel the slick texture and tangy taste of blood in her mouth, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she recognized she was going into shock from losing so much of the life-sustaining liquid. Red could feel herself slipping away. But as a foreboding yet somehow enticing darkness appeared just at the edge of her vision, all of her fear began to fade away.

Turning her eyes up to Regina, she found her Queen kneeling at her side, the beautiful face she had come to associate with happiness so broken with sorrow that it hurt her to gaze upon it. It hurt _so_ _much_ to know that Regina was in pain because of her and her impulsive actions, and she couldn't bear to watch it anymore. Mustering her strength, she lifted the arm not pinned underneath her body and then extended it in order to caress Regina's face, somewhat startled to find the appendage coated with blood from where her life's essence was spilling out onto the concrete.

At the touch of her hand, Regina let out an awful choking sob, her tears now flowing in torrents.

"I..." Red struggled to say.

"Shh," Regina responded, agony rolling over her features like waves of a stormy ocean. "Don't talk, my darling. Just let Victor help you."

Out of the corner of her vision, Red saw Dr. Whale inspecting her wound in only his undershirt, holding his crisp blue oxford in his hand. She briefly wondered what he planned to do with the expensive garment but was immediately enlightened when he tore it into two halves and then began to pack it around the wound in her back and stomach. The pain when he did so was incredible. Her vision blurred as a white hot lance of pain shot through the wounded area.

"Hold on, Red!" she heard Regina shout in that imperiously demanding tone that she had perfected. "Hold on! You hear me? You keep fighting, dammit! Don't you dare give up! Fight, Red! _Fight_!"

Frustrated by her inability to form words, Red lifted her head, albeit at a shallow angle because of the fact that she was still on her side. She felt a hand slide under her neck to brace it but was too focused on Regina to be aware of who had provided her the much needed support. She was grateful nonetheless. Driven by a desperate need to speak one last time, to spend what was left of herself for Regina's sake, she summoned what remained of her energy and will.

"I..." she tried again and this time a word emerged, though it was strangled and wet and didn't sound anything at all like her own voice, "Love..." Knowing her next word would be her last, Red gave Regina a blood-stained smile, hoping that the endless depths of her love was evident enough to be read, and hopeful that it might provide some measure of comfort to Regina when she was dead. And then with one last gasping breath, she stroked Regina's cheek. Her beloved Queen. How Red wanted to stay with her forever. Fate, however, had other plans. "You."

Her head falling backward, Red's breath left in a whoosh. Eyes fixed and open, she stared at Regina's face, determined to imprint the tragic beauty of her lover into her very soul so that wherever she went beyond this life, she could take Regina's memory with her. All too soon, though, a creeping cold descended upon her body, clouding her mind with darkness, and Red could do nothing but watch numbly as Regina began to scream again, the vein in her forehead throbbing so furiously that Red absently thought it might burst.

And then silence fell as the darkness gathered into a great black cloud which billowed around Red's consciousness until it swallowed her whole. As she faded away, all she was and had hoped for and dreamed of was swept away into nothingness, until all too soon, existence ceased and she slipped away beyond the circles of this reality.


	10. Is This The Real Life?

**Notes** : Sorry for the wait in between chapters. Hopefully this makes up for it. And sorry for the short note, I'm in a hurry! =D Thanks to all who read, review, follow, and fav as always. Love y'all! Fox out.

 **Standard Disclaimer** : The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately and I will correct them.

 **Chapter 10** – Is This The Real Life?

 _She was walking. The nascent cold of autumn was in the air, biting into the bare skin on her arms. Filled with such anxiety that her legs hardly worked at all, Regina forced herself forward one dreadful step at a time – left, right, left, right, left right, left, right. She had to concentrate on her movements lest she stumble headlong into the looming void that now permanently hovered at the edge of every footstep._

 _For the briefest of moments, her grip on control wavered, and in that millisecond she was overcome by such intense feelings of sorrow that she gasped. Clutching at her chest and grasping at the fabric of her fine black dress, she was disturbed to find gaping holes in her memory. She could not recall having dressed at all, couldn't remember much really aside from the relentless melancholy she seemed to be living in these days._

 _Casting her gaze around, she sought for Red, hoping to find the woman to whom her heart belonged for an explanation as to why she was feeling so sad, so bereft, so utterly broken that she could barely even tell she had a heart anymore. Tempted to reach into her chest just to check, Regina pressed her fingers to her breast but upon feeling the harsh thumping against her sternum, reality flooded in. Regina stopped abruptly with a jolt. At last, she remembered the terrible truth: Red was gone. Dead. Murdered right in front of her eyes._

 _With that realization came the resurgence of an anguish so acute that her body could barely contain it, let alone endure it for any sustained amount of time. It sapped her of her energy, drained her dry of the spark of life she used to have, of the motivation to get out of bed and face another day with only half of her heart and soul present. Lurching forward, Regina gasped._

 _Like she had most of the week, she began to feel like she was adrift in an endless sea of despondency. The suffocating weight of crushing depression and the abject misery of an irrecoverable loss pressed in on her from all sides, surrounding her with a darkness that seemed as strangely welcoming as it was inescapable. Death lingered there at the edges of her consciousness, its arms wide open, its ghoulish face cut into a wickedly inviting grin, pleading with eyes of burning flame for her to give up and to simply accept the inevitable. It beckoned to Regina to surrender herself to oblivion in order to join Red in whatever world awaited beyond the current one – an all too tempting prospect._

 _But then a smaller hand slipped into her own, grasping it tightly as trembling fingers began to rap an unnerved pattern against the back of her hand._

" _Mom? Are you okay?"_

 _Looking down, Regina saw her son, dressed in a fine suit of midnight black suit which was accentuated by a sleek silken tie and perfectly styled hair. His ruddy cheeks were stained with moisture, marred by streaks of liquid sorrow which flowed in fat droplets, much as if part of a heated summer rain. He swiped at his eyes and sniffled loudly, a mournful sound that pierced through the heavy air like the unexpected bursting of a happily bouncing balloon. Henry's pain was palpable, settling itself in Regina's chest right alongside her own as a knot of discomfort that refused to be relieved._

 _As if nature itself was joining in with the shared grief of mother and son, the all too familiar path that lead into the cemetery was laden with autumn's first fallen leaves, laying down a carpet of orange and yellow organic tears on which her heels loudly crunched. Clouds of dullest gray rolled lazily in the sky, blotting out the sun and casting the area in a semi-darkness that was almost too appropriately matched to the atmosphere of the occasion. In the distance, Regina could hear the rumbling of thunder. The staccato claps, uneven and deeply pulsating, seemed to match up with the stuttering beat of her heart._

 _Now closing in on the graveyard proper, she made out the marble columns of the Mills' family mausoleum. It's grand doors were flung open to receive mourners. Crowds of people surrounded it, all dressed in black. Some of them were openly weeping and almost all were gravely somber. Red's life, however woefully short, had affected so many people, most potently her friends and loved ones, that it appeared most of the town at large had gathered to mourn her. Regina hated them all._

 _None of those pretenders knew Red or even cared about her beyond her status symbol as Snow White's faithful friend and protector. Red had never been given the opportunity to be her own woman, to stand out from among her peers and be recognized as she deserved. She was forever and always being defined by her associations, a shadow that was never given a shape unique to her, ever conforming to that of others. While Regina wished to cast all such blame on Snow, she was loathe to admit that it was true with her as well. She couldn't count the number of calls and cards and letters she'd gotten apologizing for her loss as if Red's death was somehow only important because she had been Regina's lover. It was disgusting._

 _Red had a value all her own that only a select few seemed privy to, such as Snow and Emma, and even they didn't really know Red as they should. But how could they? The woman, like Regina, had kept her true self hidden, though Red's reason for doing so was vastly different. Instead of holding back due to fear of being hurt, Red's self-restraint was a sacrifice. She had voluntarily chosen to mute her incandescently blinding light so that others could shine in her place. Snow was the primary beneficiary of this, but so was Regina, and it pained her to look back and think she hadn't appreciated Red as she should have. So to see the general public with wet faces and sad eyes infuriated her. They couldn't understand. They didn't know what they were doing because they didn't really know who it was they were supposed to be mourning._

 _They didn't know how loving a person Red was or how safe she could make someone feel with her arms around them. They hadn't seen Red patiently teaching Henry how to play soccer in the backyard, hadn't danced with her until 3 am in the living room, stopping only because their feet began to hurt. Those people didn't know how how sweet Red's kisses tasted or how soft her skin was underneath the sensitive pads of a fingertip. They didn't know what Red looked like in the morning, bathed in the soft morning sunlight with her hair all sleep-tousled, her face free of makeup, and her lips adorably pouting from being awakened so early. How she still managed to look like an angel despite all of this served as proof to Regina of her inherent goodness, a goodness that wrapped Regina up each and every morning, lending her the strength to face another day. Those false faces of insincere sorrow did not have awareness behind them of how Red's pale skin glowed in the moonlight or how her expressive green eyes could write novels of love and romance that only the object of her affection could read. None of them could ever truly know anything of substance about who Red was as a woman, as a human being, or as a lover, but Regina knew it all._

 _She knew. She understood intimately and keenly felt the loss of the person who was, other than Henry, the world's most precious inhabitant. Red was worth a thousand of anyone else, nay, a million, and she had been wasted as if she were worthless, her life spilled out on Regina's front porch over a rash and impulsive act of vigilante violence that was not even directed at her. It was, Regina thought, the greatest tragedy in the history of tragedies and she seemed to be the only one who comprehended that._

 _When she thought about that, truly considered what the world had lost when Red was taken, the bitter anger that welled up in her belly rose until it burned through her chest, straining to be released upon the reckless imbeciles whose stupidity had wrought the incident. As she would often lament in the days that followed, if only she'd been permitted to do so when it happened, perhaps her agony would have been mitigated. It was an irrational thought, but focusing on her hatred helped, however little, to lessen the anguish she was drowning in._

 _After Red's death, it had taken all of Emma, Snow, and Charming's combined strength to keep Regina from destroying the entire town in her molten fury. In a perversely tragic show of irony, magic had flooded the town not a minute after Red breathed her last breath, and the second it hit Regina that it was back, she had risen from Red's side like an avenging demoness, her clothes, hands, and face stained with her lover's blood and murder in her eyes. To their credit, the 'heroes' were able to restrain her from leveling Storybrooke, but they were not quick enough to stop her from poetically slaying the man who had stabbed Red with his very own sword when she caught him trying to flee. Just a few minutes earlier, Regina might have regretted taking such an action, but after watching the life drain out of the love of her life and having sat by helplessly as the light dimmed forever from her eyes, fading away into oblivion, she came to wish she had not killed that man so quickly._

 _It took some time but eventually Regina realized that Snow, Emma, and David stopping her from lashing out at the rest of the crowd didn't really matter. Even had she been permitted to wreck the whole town and reduce it into a pile of smoldering ash, that primal act of revenge would not have satiated her, would not have put out the fiery ache that now permanently resided in her chest. Nothing could soothe her in that way ever again. Without Red, all hope of peace and happiness was forever extinguished._

 _In the aftermath of Red's death, the entire town seemed to realize that Regina was teetering on the precipice of a meltdown. Only Snow and Emma put for any kind of effort to check on her, coming by every day to offer their support despite their differences. Regina could not yet accept Snow's help though she could clearly see the woman was trying. Mostly, Regina ignored her, but there were times when she lashed out at Snow's unsolicited acts of consolation. Even then, Snow did not complain, which made Regina hate her even more._

 _Other than Henry, only Emma was allowed to show Regina any form of comfort. Against all previous evidence to the contrary, Emma's presence was not wholly unwelcome. Emma, it seemed, had let go of her antagonism and Regina was too devastated to hold on to hers. Why the shift of opinions occurred was hard to pin down, but Regina assumed it was entirely to do with the two common denominators she shared with the Savior: Henry and Red. With common ground between them, Emma no longer agitated Regina's temper enough to set her off or stirred up memories of Red the way Snow did, which only plunged her back into the throes of mourning._

 _The Savior, it turned out, was actually not so bad of a person. She was becoming a real friend to Regina in Red's absence, which helped to alleviate Regina's suffering to some degree but not nearly enough to repair the damage to she had incurred to her heart. That was a wound that nothing could heal, not even time or magic, so no matter how hard Snow or Emma tried to be there for her and no matter how much care they showed to her, she was irrevocably withering from the inside out._

 _Speaking of Emma Swan, as Regina swept her gaze through the crowd, she caught sight of the familiar flaxen hair, tied up into a messy bun, that belonged to Henry's biological mother. Making her way into the graveyard, Regina pushed through the crowd, ignoring the sympathetic gazes and pitying words of the bystanders. As she and Henry at last approached the Mausoleum, Emma looked up at her and Regina felt her chest tighten. The woman's face was stained with bitter tears, her perpetual frown stretched into a strained grimace. With her arms around her torso and hands gripping her own waist, Emma appeared to be physically trying to hold herself together, almost as if she feared she would crumble into a million pieces if she let go for even a second. Regina understood the feeling. Were it not for Henry, she would have long ago fractured apart or shrunken into a grotesque caricature of a woman._

 _As it was, Regina wished above all else that she had the option to abstain from the morbid requiem over a life that should not have been cut so tragically short, if only to drink herself into a stupefied oblivion within the confines of her home – Red's home and Regina's prison of torment. She was there for Henry's sake, though, for she knew her son needed closure. Being long accustomed to dealing with loss – even though this one stung more than any other before – Regina was an old hat at mourning. Henry, on the other hand, was not. He needed the outlet for his sadness. He needed a way to come to terms with the fact that the funny, vivacious, and infectiously kind woman he had been so privileged to accept in his life and into his heart was never coming back._

 _If it were possible, Regina would have shielded her son from the pain he was currently experiencing. However, life, as she herself had learned, did not afford such luxuries. Suffering was universal, something all creatures had to endure, a unifying crucible that linked all human beings throughout time and space with the world around them. No matter how great or how small, life ended the same way for all. Everything that lived had to die. It was just the way the universe worked. In order to live a healthy life, Henry was going to have to learn how to process those things, Regina just wished it hadn't been Red he had to learn with._

 _Looking at Emma, Regina noticed that the fair-haired woman was staring worriedly at their son. It seemed that Emma was on a similar wavelength to her own, which was a good thing. Henry was going to need his other mother in the days to come when the loss really hit Regina and drove her into such a desperately low state that she might actually pose a danger to him, albeit more indirectly than directly. And even if she was able to control herself to an adequate degree to protect him, Henry was not prepared to witness the depths of depression she would soon sink into. When that happened, Emma was going to have to step up._

" _Where are your parents?" she then asked Emma, the sound of her own voice gravelly and low as if she had spent the better part of a week sobbing herself into sickness, which she had. In fact, she wanted to do so right at that moment and would have but for Henry's hand in hers, heavily anchoring her to the present._

" _Inside," Emma replied around a sniffle, her chin trembling while a lone tear slid down those enviably high cheeks. "I think we're going to have to carry Mary Margaret out. She's not handling this well at all."_

" _As if you are," Regina commented, noticing the attempt at deflection. In a fit of uncharacteristic compassion, she reached up to smooth Emma's tears away._

 _At the touch, Emma's green eyes leveled on Regina, awash with an unmasked heartache that spoke to the depth of her feelings for Red, or rather, Ruby. Regina had not forgotten that Emma was already half in love with Ruby when she finally gathered up enough courage to follow her heart. Seeing the stars in Emma's green eyes whenever Ruby smiled at her had been all the motivation Regina had required._

 _That being said, even though nothing ever happened between Emma and Ruby, Regina was aware that the past 3 months had been difficult for the Sheriff in a way that only she could begin to understand. Emma had lost the opportunity with Ruby before even getting a chance to be with her, but to the woman's credit, she hadn't taken her heartache out on Ruby or turned her back on their friendship because of she was hurt. Instead, Emma had chosen the high road, remaining a steadfast friend until the end. For that, she had earned Regina's eternal gratitude and respect._

 _At the moment, however, Emma's heartbreak was almost as thorough as Regina's own, though somehow despite that brokenness, her eyes remained pointedly clear and full of a genuine sympathy that Regina was able to partially accept because from Emma, she knew it was real._

 _And then said eyes turned worriedly onto her. "Or you. You've not been sleeping or eating. You can't go on like this, Regina."_

 _Ducking her head, Regina fought back a cascading tide of emotions. Emma was right. She felt like a walking mess. She had not set out to fast her grief away, it was just that solid meals did not seem to want to stay down, and after the first few days of trying everything from bare-bones salads to chicken noodle soup, she gave up trying. Only the supplemental drinks, light protein shakes, juices and occasional bowls of chicken broth that Snow, Emma, or Henry forced her to down kept her going at all._

 _As if that were not bad enough, nightmares prevented her from sleeping most nights. It was impossible to stay asleep when Red's death played over and over again in her head, even in the midst of her dreams, and when she inevitably woke up screaming in much in the same way she had when she watched Red fall, it was an equally futile endeavor to go back to sleep. Most nights she just laid alone in bed or sat forlornly on her couch, thinking of what she'd lost and mourning in varying degrees of extremity._

 _Red. Her idiotically brave hero._

 _Regina hadn't asked Red to save her life like that, nor had she even really wanted it. On her best days, she did not consider her life of equal value to Red's. It never had been. How could it be? Even when she was a Queen and Red a pauper, somehow Regina had enough awareness to recognize that Red was better than her and that Red possessed something she didn't: an innate strength and goodness that made her inherently qualified to be deserving of happiness. At heart, Red had never been anything but pure, her character always unwavering, a fact which even with her blackened heart and tainted soul Regina had been cognizant of. That was what made Red's sacrifice impossibly difficult to process: it was so wrong that it was practically perverse. If there was any justice to be found in the cosmos, someone so perfect should never be permitted to die for someone so miserable._

 _Through the haze of those the days proceeding Red's death, Regina could remember imploring Emma to look after Henry so that she could be alone in her attempt to come to grips with so indigestible a reality. She hadn't wanted her son to be a witness to the way she would scream and curse and rail against life, fate, and the universe while she destroyed things at random. After a while of such fruitless pursuits, it became increasingly clear to Regina that she was on the verge of losing her mind, which made her even more glad she'd had enough of her wits about her to send Henry away._

 _Because of how close he'd grown to Red, she knew he was already in the throes of grief and with that being the case, what would it have done to him to watch his mother quite literally break on top of that? It would only have added to his torment to bear witness as she held maddened conversations with a dead woman, replete with pathetically degrading grovelling aimed at said dead woman which were interspersed with pleas for answers to questions that were unanswerable. Putting him through that spectacle would have been unconscionable._

 _And so, all alone in her giant house, Regina had went about asking those questions of Red, such as 'Why did you do that?' and 'Why didn't you just let me die?' and the most pitiful of all, 'Why did you leave me?'" Just as expected, no answer ever came, leaving her alone with an emptiness inside that grew and grew until it threatened to suck the color out of almost everything else in her life. During those darkest of days, it was a miracle that she was able to get out of bed at all, let alone take care of a ten year old son who was processing the death of someone he loved as well._

 _Thinking about that now, Regina tallied up shame to her laundry list of emotional ailments, for not only had she failed to save Red, but she was a proving herself to be a lousy mother as well. She supposed after the example that had been set for her, it was inevitable, but it still hurt._

" _I know, Emma. Yet I'm still here," she eventually responded to Emma's concerned statement of fact, lifting her eyes to give the woman a weak smile. "Although that's about as much as I can manage for the moment."_

 _Nodding as if grudgingly accepting Regina's answer, Emma then lead both her and Henry inside, but not before affectionately ruffling her son's hair. The boy sniffled yet again and greeted his other mother in such a sorrowful tone that it set off moisture in Regina's eyes once more. Tamping down on them, she followed Emma in, still holding on tightly to Henry's hand._

 _She hated that she needed him so much. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't it be the child who leans on the parent for strength and not the parent the child? But the fact remained that Henry was the only tether currently tying her to existence. If his hold on her slipped away, the ever-present temptation to kill herself would rear its ugly head again, and the way she was feeling at that moment, she knew she hadn't the strength to resist it. The blissful oblivion of suicide was almost always a viable option for those devoid of all hope, as it often seemed for Regina when compared to the gaping wound in her soul that radiated molten agony almost constantly. For Henry, though, she persisted._

 _Once inside the Mausoleum, the small crowd that was gathered around Red's casket parted in reverential silence, allowing Regina, Henry, and Emma to step around to the end where Snow and Charming were standing. Not unexpectedly, Snow was so distraught that Charming was literally having to hold her upright. Emma had underestimated her mother's grief. The muffled cries emanating from Regina's former nemesis should have been a source of great joy but instead they only magnified her own personal anguish._

 _Of all the mourners there save Regina, Snow was the only person who had truly known Red beyond the cursed Ruby persona that served the many patrons of Granny's diner. As unlikely and difficult as it was to accept, Regina had to admit she felt a new kinship with Snow because of that tie. While it was more macabre in nature than the short-lived bond they had formed after Regina saved Snow's life, it was still very real and almost distressingly tangible. They were now connected together by more than a life debt, tragedy, and mutual disdain, but by their love for the irreplaceable woman that they were both striving unsuccessfully to say goodbye to._

" _Oh, God, Regina," Snow gasped when she caught sight of the newcomers. "I'm so sorry. I'm so_ , _so_ _sorry."_

 _Regina couldn't speak, could only nod in a similitude of gratitude due to the heavy lump in her throat. It took everything she had, all of her internal fortitude, to hold in her renewed anguish. Snow was not so disciplined, though. Covering her face with her hands, the raven haired woman began to sob in earnest once more._

 _A movement from the side then drew Regina's eyes to Emma, whose own aura of strength was disintegrating in a frighteningly rapid manner as she watched her friend and new-found mother fall apart. Rushing over to Snow, Emma took her from her father and gathered the trembling woman up in her arms in a rare display of public affection. It was a touching sight, or rather would have been if Regina could feel anything beyond constant, debilitating sorrow._

 _Along with Snow's weeping, an oppressively sad atmosphere descended over the room, punctuated by the sounds of crying and sniffling from all over the room. For a long time, Regina was unable to move. She simply stood there, still as a statue, staring almost lifelessly at the occupied casket. Red's body was there, resting just inside it, having been enchanted for preservation after being dutifully cared for at no cost by Victor Whale – a penance for the part he played in her death. The kindness did not absolve him by a long shot, but Regina was no longer tempted to set him on fire every time she looked at him._

 _It was strange to think of Red being so still, so quiet. In life the vibrant woman was almost constantly moving as if in a permanent state of forward inertia, hardly ever slowing down except when in bed, which Regina sometimes had to forcibly drag her into (except on those occasions where nakedness was promised; Red came willingly then), and sometimes not even then. Just as it was back in the Enchanted Forest, before the Dark Curse, being with someone so young and energetic had breathed a new sense of vitality into Regina's life and had helped to break her out of the shell she had erected around her heart to guard her true self from being further abused. By just being herself, Red had forced Regina to spread her wings once more, to take that chance of leaping from the safety of the nest she had constructed out of things she was comfortable with, and to risk everything just be able to feel what it's like to fly (it was exhilarating and addicting and Regina didn't know how she was going to live without it now)._

 _But Red wasn't moving anymore or loving Regina in a way that pushed and inspired her to be a better person. In fact, Red did not even exist anymore. What rested in that casket wasn't Red at all but a hollow husk, an empty shell that merely resembled the woman Regina loved, and even that poorly, thus the reason for the closed casket. Regina did not want to see Red that way. She wanted to remember her the way she was when she lived and they loved each other. That body was not Red because the spirit that it once housed was long gone, having fled from this world for realms unknown, forever out of Regina's reach._

 _There, standing silently at the coffin, acceptance finally dawned. Having already spent her rage and disbelief, having already begged and pleaded until her voice was hoarse, all to no avail, and having already been consumed by sorrow, all that was left for Regina was embrace the actuality. Now that it was finally registering, it brought with it the awful truth that she was never going to see Red again._

 _All that she had now besides her priceless memories were her mementos, such as her favorite picture featuring Red in pigtails wearing her most luminescent smile, and the videos she had taken of Red dancing in the living room to bad rock-n-roll hair bands. There were also treasured belongings to cling to, things Red left behind like her vast collection of hats and necklaces, and various articles of clothing like her worn out flannel shirt and her recent favorite, a gray t-shirt that she had – after seeing Emma's VW Beetle flavored one – begged her grandmother to embroider with bold red letters that read, "I Love My Latina". Both of those shirts still hung in the closet with Regina's clothes, still smelling like the woman who so proudly wore them. But however much comfort she could draw from such things, they were a poor substitute for the woman they had once belonged to._

 _Regina's heart rent at the thought of never feeling Red's touch again or getting to taste the desire on her painted lips or smell her coconut scented lotion while she diligently rubbed it into the silky skin of her legs. She would never get to wake up to the radiating heat of Red's body again, so welcoming that she relished the feeling of pressing her body as tightly into that pliant source of comfort as she could. Never again would she get to watch Red's face light up when she caught Regina walking into a room, or see the unfiltered adoration resting upon it while Regina cooked dinner, or observe the ecstasy that washed over it while she was being relentlessly driven to completion. It was unthinkable that for the rest of her life, Regina was going to have to go on living without the only other person besides her son who gave her life meaning, the woman she'd just learned was her True Love and the other half of herself._

 _How was she supposed to go on? How was she supposed to survive having been given the glimpse of real, tangible happiness only to have it ripped so cruelly away from her yet again? How was she supposed to make it day after day after day through the abyss of darkness in her heart that seemed to never, ever end, like a gravity well of despair that mercilessly pulled her under one excruciating inch a time? The crushing nature of her grief was killing her at such an agonizingly slow pace that she could no longer cope under the stress._

 _Unable to stand it anymore, Regina felt something snap in her mind. Eyes wide with panic and mouth hanging open in a silent scream, she began to hyperventilate as she backed away from the casket and through the arched opening separating the viewing area from the rest of the vault until she collided with the far wall. She slid heavily down the wall once she hit it, causing her dress to rumple up from the friction, landing with a thud on her rear. The pain of the hard impact did not even register._

 _Rocking back and forth under the pressing assault of madness, she gasped and fought for air, clinging wildly to the last shreds of reality as the hysteria clawing at her mind began to prevail. Pressing her face into her hands, she moaned, emitting a loud wailing sound that deafened her to everything else that was happening around her. The magnitude of her torment was so great that her magic flared to life unbidden and spun helplessly out of control, lashing out unpredictably and shaking the entirety of the building down to its foundations._

 _Feeling her sanity crumble along with the marble walls of the mausoleum, Regina screamed._


	11. A Suggestion To Consider

**Standard Disclaimer** : The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately and I will correct them.

 **Chapter 11** – A Suggestion to Consider

Awaking with a terrified shout, Regina cast bleary liquid eyes around the darkened bedroom as she panted. It was, she dully noted by the clock on the nightstand, 3 am. Seeing the side of the bed next to her empty, she fought back panic. Where was Red? The too-real dream she'd been torn from was still so prevalent in her mind that she half-believed it to be real, and Red's absence was only stoking the embers of her deepest fear.

"Red!" she shouted, half-delirious and not really cognizant of the fact that her son was sleeping within earshot of such a noise and needing rest for his pending mid-terms. When no one answered, she choked out a strangled sob.

A minute later – or maybe two or ten, Regina couldn't tell – she heard a slightly uneven gait approaching and was able to recognize it through the fog of her disquiet. The painful pressure in her chest dissipated into a dull ache. It was Red.

Nearly a year on from the disastrous confrontation on her porch after the breaking of the Curse, Red was mostly healed thanks to her superior werewolf genes...mostly. Two scars remained, marring the otherwise flawless skin on her abdomen just beneath her sternum and just above the small of her back, the entry and exit wounds of the sword that had very nearly taken her life. And though she still walked with a noticeable limp, relatively speaking, Red was very lucky. If she were anyone else, she would not be walking at all.

When Victor Whale had emerged from the operating room that day, Regina's entire body had tensed due to his pale and stricken features. In all the years she had known the man, he had never been one to show much emotion, particularly where his work was concerned, so seeing him so affected by whatever had happened to Red alerted Regina to that something terrible had happened.

At first, she'd thought Red had died and she very nearly freaked out, but then Victor delivered the news that Red was alive. Relief immediately washed over Regina, though it was only temporary, for he then went on to inform her that there was damage to Red's spinal column, and that he was reluctant to guess as to whether or not she would ever walk again. If it weren't for Emma's quick reflexes to prop her up, Regina probably would have fallen to the floor when her knees very nearly gave out upon hearing that potential prognosis. Red, she knew, would rather have died than to live out the rest of her life without the use of her legs.

There wasn't anyone Regina could think of more active than Red was. Back in the Enchanted Forest Red had loved being outdoors, preferring opens skies and tall grass to the stuffy confines of a castle. Whether walking, hiking, or running about the plentiful acreage around the Dark Palace, she took every possible opportunity to indulge her need for activity, no matter the season, no matter the weather. If the sun was up, Red wanted to be out and about, often dragging Regina along on her excursions despite the halfhearted protestations of a Queen who had lost some of that youthful vigor over the course of her tragic life and trying reign. And although Regina's overdeveloped sense of decorum meant that she was obligated to give at least an appearance of resistance, it never lasted for long after seeing Red's face light upon breathing in the fresh air and bathing in the warm rays of the sun.

As a werewolf, Red thrived on physical challenges, so sometimes Regina liked to push her lover to test the superhuman strength and stamina she possessed. Having posed challenges a competitive spirit like Red could not resist, Regina would keenly observe, properly awed as she watched Red lift objects that the strongest man in all the realms would not dare to attempt to move, and would gawk openly as Red used only her arms to propel herself up the towering iron latticed cages Regina kept in the rear of the castle grounds to house the hawks and ravens she often liked to tame. In Regina's mind, the only thing that could match Red's physical prowess for its marvelous wonder was her beauty, making her the preeminent specimen of the female sex.

But Red's natural proclivity for athletic feats was not limited to the Enchanted Forest, for even as Ruby she displayed an inherent affinity for sports, picking up any she tried with ease to the point of excellence. Regina would never have known this but for the months they dated before the Curse broke, but during that time Ruby went out of her way to spend time with Henry by teaching him the intricacies of the scant few sports he showed even a passing interest in. His main interest was soccer since his friend Nicholas played, and it was through Ruby's enthusiastic ability to both play the sport and instruct others how to that he got truly hooked. In fact, Henry remained a soccer fanatic the present day.

For hours they would practice in Regina's backyard, particularly on Saturday afternoons when Ruby was off work. Watching her son bond with her lover, even through the medium of a sport she was uninterested in, produced some of her favorite memories. One time Ruby was feeling particularly playful and proceeded to really lay it on with the trash talking as she scored on Henry over and over. For the most part, he gave as good as he got verbally, but after a while, he finally grew tired of Ruby's antics, and with a growl of frustration, he launched himself at her to tackle her by the legs. Catching Ruby unaware, both of them were sent crashing to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. For a long moment, Regina held her breath and waited for an exchange of heated words once Ruby recovered from the cheap shot, but they never came. Instead, after pushing Henry off of her, she rolled onto her back and broke out into a raucous laughter that soon infected Henry. They must have laid in the backyard for five minutes, laughing and giggling and exchanging quips. As she chuckled in amusement at their behavior, it finally became clear to Regina just how invested Ruby was in Henry, not just for her sake but for his own, and it filled her heart with such warmth that it spread out from her chest until reaching the tips of her toes.

To her shame, she had not always believed Ruby's efforts to be wholly magnanimous where Henry was concerned. At first because of the relative newness of their relationship she had been convinced that Ruby was simply indulging Henry in order to please her. But that selfish and rather egotistical assumption proved to be so very wrong and she was, for once, glad of it.

Still, besides Ruby's desire to bond with Henry, there were two things of note that Regina picked up as they spent time together playing sports. First was Ruby's passion for the game which showed through the enthusiasm with which she taught Henry, and with which she played during recreational games she began to organize with her friends and acquaintances. In addition to general knowledge of how to properly play the sport, it was that passion Ruby had endeavored to pass on to Henry, and inspired as he was by her, he soon began to develop an interest all his own.

Secondly, Regina had noticed just how astoundingly skilled her lover was. Each afternoon before a practice with Henry, Ruby would warm up by traversing the length of Regina's property from one end to the other and back again without once using her hands or the ball ever touching the ground. The feat was only made more impressive by the obvious fact that it was ludicrously easy for her to accomplish – so easy that Regina assumed she could probably continue on indefinitely.

And it wasn't just the skill alone that awed Regina, for Ruby possessed a grace in her movements, an effortless coordination that was so precise and flawless that it could not be taught. When Regina had commented on it, Ruby told her that she had just always been good at sports. It took a bit of pressing, but eventually Regina got her to admit that she actually played soccer in high school in addition to basketball and softball and tennis. She was also captain of the track team. The fact that the memories were not real had not even entered into Regina's mind due to the Curse being incapable of giving people skills they could not develop on their own.

With intrigue burning in her gut, Regina made an after-hours trip to Storybrooke High School to pay a visit to the Principal, Maria Temple. Miss Temple was a gentle soul whose manners and comportment were above reproach. She was a bit too cordial for Regina's tastes, but all in all, she liked the woman, and apparently Miss Temple had been profoundly fond of Ruby. The ostensible reason for the visit was Regina's interest in the curriculum and what college-applicable studies were offered in preparation for Henry being of age to attend. But when Regina had casually – or so she thought – noted a trophy belonging to Ruby, Miss Temple proved far more insightful than Regina had imagined.

"You needn't hide your secret with me, my dear," the prim though kind lady had said, patting Regina's arm. "Back when Ruby was attending school, every time you gave a speech at a game or at a school-wide function, her eyes always followed you with such spellbound wonder that I knew she was smitten. While I am surprised to learn that something tangible came of her attraction, I can't say I'm displeased. Of all people, Ruby deserves happiness. She was my favorite of her class, you know? She always had so much potential, she just spent far too long in Mary Margaret Blanchard's shadow, if you ask me."

Despite blushing to the roots of her hair, Regina found herself wholeheartedly agreeing. Though she did not openly admit her relationship with Ruby, it was a tacit acknowledgment that Miss Temple had understood and vowed to keep a secret. Eventually, Regina caved enough to reveal that the true purpose of her visit was to inquire on Ruby's accomplishments since Ruby was too modest to talk of them herself. At that, Miss Temple became positively animated and began gushing out praise for the extraordinary young woman who, as she so aptly put it, "never got the credit she deserved."

With Miss Temple describing each one in detail, Regina was lead down case after case of trophies that Ruby had acquired for the school, ending in a display of school records in every sport. Because so many of them belonged to her, those cases seemed almost like shrines to the peerless athletic achievements of one Ruby Lucas, for as it turned out, there was not an individual record for the sports Ruby played that she did not hold. What's more, according to Miss Temple she was apparently the only person in the history of Storybrooke High to letter in five sports.

As a perpendicular interest, Regina had been fascinated by the incredible detail the Curse had provided, but even more so, she was impressed with Ruby, and not because of fake trophies but because she realized that if Ruby had actually attended Storybrooke High, it was almost a point of fact that nothing would have changed. While they were dating, Regina had personally witnessed Ruby play half of those sports, and in each one she trounced her opponents (both male and female) so thoroughly that even though Regina was proud as hell of her lover, she honestly pitied the poor saps who dared to attempt defeating her. It was almost beyond unfair how great an athlete Ruby was.

All of that went to show how much Ruby...Red relied on her physicality. It was such a part of who she was that to be without the ability to walk would be like Regina being stripped of magic. After Daniel's death, magic became the crutch that got Regina through the awful years of her marriage to Leopold and the never-ending misery of being Snow White's stepmother. It was her one constant companion, the one thing she could rely on to always be there for her, helping her when she was in need and giving her strength when she felt weak. And while the Curse had certainly deprived her of her magic, it was a voluntary surrender rather than a forced one. Had she been robbed of her magic without consent, she probably would have lost all will to go on. Likewise, if Red could never walk again, Regina knew she would never be happy, and that was just about too much to cope with.

When Regina finally worked up the strength to ask Victor for more details concerning Red's condition, he went on to explain that if the blade of the sword had passed an inch to the left when traveling through her abdomen, it would have severed her spinal cord, undoubtedly paralyzing her for life. As it was, the blow was glancing, so while there was damage done, it was not nearly as catastrophic as it could have been. And because of the heavy amount of swelling around Red's spinal column, there was no way for him to gauge the extent of the trauma to her spinal cord, and therefore there was no way for him to accurately predict expectations for her recovery. As a final note, he pointed out that Red would almost certainly experience at least some paralysis, but having said that, there was still hope that it would be temporary.

It was another terrifying two hour wait for Regina for Victor to return with a status update. When he did, it was with the news that Red was awake but as predicted, she could not feel anything below her waist. Immediately thinking of her magic, Regina inquired as to whether it would be practical to use it to heal Red, a suggestion which Victor quickly dismissed. Because he felt so guilty about what happened to Red, he revealed that he had reached out to Rumplestiltskin when he heard magic was in Storybrooke. To his dismay, the Dark One informed him that because this world was one without inherent magic, the imported form he had brought over from the Enchanted Forest was far too unstable to wield when dealing with such a delicate wound.

Initially, Regina had been enraged that Victor had dared to consult Rumple behind her back, particularly about so sensitive and personal a topic. The rivalry between them had not chilled with the long absence of memory on his part, and where Regina was concerned, he would always be the blasted imp who manipulated her into becoming the Evil Queen and who had condemned Red to a life of salacious behavior as Ruby. In the end, though, she came to recognize the paradoxical wisdom in Victor's decision, even though it bore no fruit.

There was no denying that Rumple was a devious manipulator but he was also the foremost expert on magic in all the realms, and what's more, Regina did not believe his assertions to be false due to her own experience with magic since its return. Several times during the long wait for news about Red, she tried to wield it only for it to spark to life and then fizzle out with a pathetic whimper. Other times, it behaved in a wildly unpredictable fashion, flaring up at random when her stress became untenable and only subsiding when she was able to calm herself. Without magic to fall back on to heal Red, the only hope Regina retained for her recovery was the science and medicine of this world.

As a lifelong practitioner of both and with knowledge the Curse had provided him with, Victor's professional prognosis was to wait and see. Those were not the words Regina wanted to hear. She was a problem solver, a fixer and a go-getter, so being hamstrung in that way was both infuriating and heartbreaking, especially when she saw Red for the first time and those big green eyes flooded with tears upon spotting Regina in the doorway. For the next half-hour, Red sobbed her dismay into Regina's blouse. Rather than offering empty words of encouragement, Regina let her cry, hoping her presence provided at least some measure of comfort. It was, after all, the only thing she could do for her devastated lover, to be there, to be her rock to lean on. She owed Red that. So, if she could not wield her magic to fix her wounded lover, she could at least love her through the crisis.

Days of exhausting and rigorous testing ensued during which Red was a virtual basket case. The debilitating fear that her paralysis would be permanent seemed to weigh on her constantly, making her act extremely out of character. It was only because Regina couldn't imagine how scary it was for her that she was able to stay in control whilst enduring the vicious mood swings, harsh words, and hurtful accusations that characterized Red in those days. But she'd stayed strong, resolute in her decision to remain unwavering with her support, even when she was hurting herself.

Dealing with the fallout from the Curse breaking was hard enough for Regina, but adding to that the responsibility for her son's welfare and a lover that seemed to be vacillating irrationally between anger and withdrawal made for an extremely stressful period of days. Often, she would feel so overwhelmed by it all that she would have to sequester herself somewhere just to scream out her frustrations, venting all of her pent up negative energy lest she snap at Red or Henry and hurt them more than they already were. She'd felt bad enough as it was for making her son doubt that she loved him and for being the cause of Red's terrible injury, so like a soldier in the midst of battle, she set aside her own pain and pressed on. Red had not given up on her, so she was not going to give up on Red.

Thankfully, after four days in the hospital and with both women pushing the limits of their patience, Victor finally came in with good news. The most recent scans of Red's spine indicated that the nerve damage was minimal and that it was possible that Red might regain the use of her legs. With that news, hope returned to Red and with it her a measure of her old self. It was hard to describe the relief Regina felt at seeing Red smile again, at watching her general enthusiasm for life return one joke and one laugh at a time. All she could really say was that it felt like the weight of the world was lifted off her shoulders, that she could at long last breathe again. It was really quite a fantastic feeling, though it was also one she was not in a hurry to relive.

Things only got better with the next two days during which progressive scans of the effected area of Red's spinal cord revealed visible signs of healing. It was, Victor had declared, a medical miracle. Regenerating tissue in the spinal cord that was damaged should not be possible, but both Regina and Red knew better. Those werewolf genes of Red's were kicking in at last, mending parts of her body that in an ordinary human would have remained permanently useless. After learning that news, Red expressed open gratitude for being born a werewolf, which Regina wholeheartedly reiterated.

Another two days later, feeling started to come back in Red's toes. Regina would never forget the look on her lover's face when she actually felt the needle prick the big toe on her left foot. It was so awestruck and overjoyed yet filled with such indescribable grief that Regina cried right along with her, as did Henry and Granny and Emma and Snow (who were visiting at the time) and just about everyone else milling about the hospital wing, including the nurses who had been caring for Red over the week plus stay. Even at her worst, Red had a unique way of making people care for her. Hell, even the implacable Victor Whale had misty eyes on her behalf. But those tears didn't last long, for with a mighty whoop of joy, Red declared, "I'm going to walk again!" General celebration ensued.

Although Red was almost assured a complete recovery, her road getting there was a long one. For the first three months she was out of the hospital she was bound to a wheel chair when out of bed, and after that, six months walking with a cane. But unlike before when she had awakened from anesthesia to find out she might be paralyzed, she never gave up. Sure, she had her bad days when she couldn't motivate herself to get out of bed, but on those days, Regina would curl up with her to watch TV or play board games or cards or just lay there with her hurting lover, offering support and encouragement for however long Red could endure it. Sometimes Henry even joined them, making the lazy day in bed a family affair. Red often expressed her opinion in the days after one of those episodes that it was Regina and Henry as well as Granny and her other family that gave her the strength to keep fighting. Without them, she would say, she'd have simply shriveled up and died. Regina tended to castigate Red for such negative comments but she couldn't deny how nice it felt to be someone's inspiration for once rather than the source of their hatred or terror.

Also during those long nine months, Red endured one extensive rehab session after another. Like with nearly everything else in life, she attacked them with 100 percent of her effort, making strides that constantly amazed her doctors and therapists alike. It was in large part thanks to that work ethic, helped along by her superior healing abilities, that she was out of her wheelchair only ninety days after a sword had nicked her spinal cord, and was walking without a cane six months after that. Regina had never been more proud of someone than she was of Red the day she laid that cane down for the last time so that they could slow dance in the living room to the smooth, amorous tones of Billie Holiday's "I'll Be Seeing You".

So while at the same time hearing Red's disjointed footsteps was a reminder of how close Regina had come to losing her True Love, it was also a cause for hope. Red hadn't died and she hadn't been paralyzed for life, and that was a deep, inexhaustible well from which Regina could draw courage, even on her worst days or in cases such as this, nights.

When the bed beside her dipped a moment later, a strong arm wrapped around her waist, startling Regina out of her complex ruminations. As Red began to rub a soothing pattern on the small of her back, she shivered. Even though Red's presence reassured her, she still felt that gnawing sense of dread from her dream.

"Hey," Red's soothing voice greeted, drawing out the single syllable word with an imploring timbre. "What's the matter?"

"Where were you?" Regina replied, sliding her hand out to rest on a bare thigh and turning into the embrace. She pressed her face into Red's neck and breathed deeply. The lingering scent of her partner's fruity shampoo and body wash helped to coax Regina further down from the precarious precipice of her nightmare. "I woke and you weren't here."

"Aww, babe," Red cooed, nuzzling her cheek to the top of Regina's head, "I'm right here. Sorry I didn't answer, I was using the little girl's room. Did you have that same dream again?" Regina nodded into Red's chest. It was a lie. The dream was different and much more frightening but she wasn't about to tell Red that, knowing it make her worry herself sick.

Pulling back, Red leveled Regina with a worried tint to her green eyes. "I really think you need to talk to someone, sweetie," she said. "You don't seem to want to talk to me about it and your coping mechanisms are clearly not working. You've been having these dreams for a month now and they need to stop. You're not resting at all."

"I know," Regina replied, sniffling. "I just...I think I know why I'm having them, so I'm pretty sure they'll pass in time."

"Why do you say that?"

Looking at Red, Regina sucked on her bottom lip for a moment. "What day is next Tuesday?"

Red's brows rose in confusion. "February 23rd. Why?"

"Think about it. What happened on that day just one year ago?"

For a moment, Red remained silent, thinking it through as Regina suggested. When realization dawned, she visibly winced. "Oh. I didn't even realize."

"Yes, well, I did," Regina said stiffly. "I'll never forget it. It's kind of hard to forget the day you watched the love of your life nearly die on your front porch."

Looking suitably chastised, Red cupped Regina's cheek and smoothed her thumb over parted lips. "I'm sorry, hon," she apologized, "I just..." Sighing, she shook her head. "I guess its all still a blur to me. I don't really remember much about that day beyond Emma coming to pick Henry up."

Averting her eyes, Regina breathed deeply. Sometimes she forgot that Red's memory of that day was spotty at best, not that it was a bad thing. If she had gone through what Red did, she wouldn't want to remember either. Hell, sometimes she wished she could forget that ghastly day herself.

"It's alright," she then said, glancing back up. "I suppose it's for the best that you don't remember."

"Maybe," Red replied, running her hand over Regina's sweat dampened hair. With a gentle smile, she stretched out on the bed, her movements still stilted – though barely – from residual twinges of pain. Once settled, she drew Regina to lay down next to her. Resting her head on Red's chest, Regina listened to the steady beating of the heart directly beneath her ear and the vibrations of Red's comforting voice, which helped her to breathe a little easier. "I get glimpses sometimes," Red then said unprompted, "these random little flashes of memories that never linger for very long. They always leave behind a feeling of fear, though."

"Which makes sense because you were," Regina replied, drawing her hand up to fist in the fabric of the snug baby blue tank-top Red was sleeping in, "afraid that is. I could see it in your eyes. You kept trying to speak but nothing came out that I could understand. Victor told me later that the blade hit at such an extreme angle that it nicked your stomach, too. Blood was filling your throat and your chest cavity, making it hard for you to breathe, not to mention talking. Seeing you like that...gasping and choking on your own blood...it was awful, Red, just awful. I've never been so scared in my life."

Returning a gentle hand to thread through Regina's hair, Red pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and began to brush long, nimble fingers through her ebony locks, setting a steady, soothing rhythm that helped to quieten the turmoil of such troubling memories.

"I'm so sorry that I scared you," Red whispered, pressing her lips to Regina's forehead this time and allowing them to linger.

Clenching her eyes shut, Regina breathed in deeply and exhaled. In the face of such tenderness and needless contrition, she cut off her temptation to demand promises from Red that she knew could not be kept. It would accomplish little good to chastise Red for acting on an instinct that had saved her life, for had that blade been permitted to strike its intended target, she would have been dead. Because of their height difference, the blow that had pierced Red just below her sternum would have been through Regina's heart.

Although she would have preferred that to have been the case, Regina was neither ungrateful nor unaware that she would never be able to restrain Red from risking her life for anyone she loved. That self-sacrificial nature worried Regina endlessly but she wouldn't change it for the world because it was an integral part of who Red was; it was what made Red capable of such profound depths of love. Regina could never wish to eradicate that, for without Red's love, she would not have become a woman whose faults her son could so quickly look beyond to see the mother who loved him with all of her heart. Without Red, Regina would be deprived of a happiness that was almost too much to contain at times. So as concerning as it was, Red's willingness to risk her life to protect those she loved was something Regina was just going to have to live with. It was part of the deal that came along with being in love with her.

Besides, in the end things worked out for the good. But would Red be so lucky the next time?

"Don't be sorry," Regina replied, mostly meaning it. "You saved my life." There was still a small part of her that was angry at Red but it was the selfish part that she was mostly able to overrule these days. Yet even though she was able to curb the desire to imperiously demand Red listen to reason, she was not able to stop herself from turning up her head to fix Red with a look that hovered somewhere between stern and pleading. "I just wish I could keep you from ever doing such a thing again."

"Well, you can't," Red replied as Regina knew she would. "I'll always protect you, even at my own expense." A detail of which Regina was already painfully well aware. "I would take that blade a hundred times if it meant saving your life once."

Red would take the blade a hundred times but it would only take once to destroy Regina, as evidenced by her dream. It was likely a subconscious way of reminding her how brief life was, and that it would be an unforgivable to sin to take what she had for granted. Red was far too precious a gift to be wasted.

"But then what would I do?" she posed based on the completely plausible outcome to Red's death the dream had revealed. The memories of it were still fresh, driving the desire to get her point across as effectively as possible, and since Red had opened the door, she could feel guilt-free in doing so. Lifting herself to prop up on an elbow, Regina gazed down at her partner. "What would I do without you? I don't think you understand how close I came to losing it. Had my magic been returned and at full capacity..."

Shuddering, Regina shook her head as she trailed off. It would have been horrible. She'd already been teetering on the edge of an uncontrollable rage from the mere presence of the angry mob of morons who had dared to trespass on her property, and when her son was present to boot. But when Red uttered that last broken, "I love you," and the light in her eyes faded away, when that strong heart that had endured so much undeserved abuse over the years finally stopped beating, Regina momentarily snapped.

Seeing black, she'd pounced on the man whose assassination attempt she believed had cost Red her life. With a strength fueled by bloody rage, she knocked him to the ground and pinned him there with her legs while she strangled the life out of him with her bare hands. By the time Emma pried her off, he had turned a pretty shade of violet. Had it not been for that intervention, Regina would have killed the man and felt absolutely no remorse in doing so.

As a matter of fact, she had been so lost in a haze of fury that the gall Emma displayed in interfering set her off again, this time on the so-called Savior herself. With Emma firmly in her sights, she approached in her most menacing pose, ready to thrash the presumptive blonde for daring to cut her vengeance short, and would have done just that but for a shout of triumph from behind her. Turning her attention away from the object of her anger, Regina found Victor Whale leaning over Red, his fingers poised over the artery in her neck and a buoyant smile on his face.

"She's back for now," he'd said, his smile fading quickly. Regina had been so lost to her furor that she hadn't even noticed him begin CPR. "But we need to get her to the hospital asap or she's going to die, and I won't be able to bring her back next time."

In the face of potentially saving Red's life, everything else faded away, rendered inconsequential. Her animosity forgotten, Regina attempted to accompany Victor in the ambulance when it arrived (fortunately Emma had called for one the second she saw Red injured), but was rebuffed. While the Curse had provided for a hospital and medical equipment current for the 1980s, they were substandard to the current era, with ambulances being no exception. Because Victor needed room to work, there was no room inside the rescue vehicle for anyone save himself and the EMTs who answered the call.

It was an agonizing experience for Regina to watch that ambulance drive away, feeling like she had left half of her heart in the back of it. The only thing that eased her turmoil was the indisputable fact that Victor Whale was every bit as good a surgeon as he was a cold and conniving bastard, and that was a good thing because she hadn't forgotten what he'd done to her under Rumple's guidance, neither was she soon to. But it was also an equally irrefutable fact that the man saved Red's life, so Regina had been willing to cut him a little slack for his role in what transpired that day.

Surprisingly enough, Victor eventually turned out to be a very good friend to Red, whose naturally merciful attitude showed no signs of holding his actions against him. That Red was able to forgive him had been the cornerstone of a solid friendship the two built in the months that followed, but while Red could look past Victor's faults to see the man inside, Regina could not. However misunderstood Victor Whale was, and however much he had helped the woman she loved, he was no friend of hers and never would be. For Red's sake, though, Regina was willing to at least tolerate him.

The unexpected development of a friendship between Red and Victor Whale was not the only positive consequence of what might have been an otherwise senseless tragedy. It was watching Regina fall to pieces over Red's injury that finally convinced Henry that his mother was not the heartless witch his precious and previously infallible storybook had made her out to be. He hadn't supposed to be there at all, but unbeknownst to Emma, after she'd left him under the care of a trusted neighbor (for which Emma had received a lengthy tongue lashing later on), he disobeyed her instructions to stay put. After making his way back to the house, he arrived just in time to catch the aftermath of Red being stabbed.

The look in his eyes when Regina saw him told her everything she needed to know, that not only was he distraught because Red was hurt, but also because he could see that his mother was in pain. That look reignited a hope in Regina perhaps they could move past her casting of the curse to rebuild their relationship. She didn't have to wait long for confirmation.

She had been sitting with her son in Charming's truck while waiting for the other half of Storybrooke's most famous (-ly disgusting) lovebirds to take Henry home with him. At Henry's request, she had just finished giving him a rundown of what had happened. Learning that Red got hurt saving her life changed something in him.

"I'm sorry, Mom," he'd said soon thereafter, a solitary tear sliding down his cheek. "I was so hateful to you, and I said that you were the Evil Queen. What you did...the Curse...that was bad, but I really can see now that you love me and that you love Ruby, too. If you were still the Evil Queen you couldn't do that."

"Oh, sweetheart," she'd replied, drawing her son into her arms and holding him properly for the first time since confession her sins to him. "While it pleases me to hear that, I have to be honest with you. I _was_ the Evil Queen and I did do a bad thing. In fact, I did many bad things, more than I could ever count or hope to repay. But for whatever reason, I was fortunate enough to have two people come into my life who showed me that there was still goodness in my heart, that I could still love and still find happiness. You," she squeezed him, "were one of them and Red was the other. Now," she pulled away, rubbing his shoulders affectionately, "I know I have a lot to make up for, but I'm willing to try if you are."

Henry had sniffled as he nodded. "Yeah," he breathed, "I'd like that, Mom."

After giving him another long hug, she sent Henry on his way with Charming, along with a promise to give Ruby a hug and a kiss from her "favorite punk". After climbing into her Mercedes, Regina wasted no time in departing. She drove to the hospital like an authentic maniac. Speeding through the streets of Storybrooke, she was reminded of the way Ruby loved to show off in that hideous metal coffin of a vehicle she owned, spinning her tires at red lights and hugging tight curves until Regina was shouting obscenities from the seat next to her. The speed demon in Ruby would have been extraordinarily proud of the way she tore through Main Street like a bat out of hell, honking her horn at the handful of other drivers she had to swerve around to pass.

Making record time, she arrived at the hospital just after they had taken Red into surgery. The three hours of waiting afterward were an exercise in both restraint and torment, for not only had Regina been dealing with the trauma of watching her girlfriend nearly die, but she'd also been wrestling with the fact that there were still a multitude of angry townsfolk who would not rest until they saw justice doled out on the woman who had cursed them away from their homes. Too proud to run and too tired to fight, escaping them had not been an option, especially since all she wanted was to go home with Red and Henry and live out the rest of her life in peace if that was even possible.

Intellectually, she knew her wishes to be far fetched. Justice in the Enchanted Forest was arbitrary at best, so with its citizens all riled up like they were, it was unlikely that reason would prevail. Although, what _was_ reasonable when considering everything they would accuse her of she was guilty of and more? She was guilty of so many evil deeds that there were any number to choose from that would earn her a swift execution.

Yet however much Regina was ready to consciously own up to her crimes, she couldn't help but hope for leniency. From her perspective it would have been the ultimate misfortune in a life filled to the brim with it to have finally found her happy ending just to lose it when her crimes finally caught up with her. Luckily events would soon conspire to keep her alive but she hadn't known at the time that she would live past the night.

As such, all she could do was pass the time stewing on her guilt and worry. Sitting there in the waiting room, twisted up inside from the torrent of emotions she was feeling, she had felt time crawling by like a slug over hot concrete, melting as it passed and leaving a trail of gooey anxiety in its wake. And as if that was not bad enough, she had to endure nearly constant withering stares from Snow and Emma, both so full of self-righteous judgment and condemnation that she became increasingly agitated.

Thankfully Granny remained passive in observation, having given Regina her conditional support upon arriving at the hospital. When Granny approached, Regina had been standing outside the waiting room, trying to hold herself together.

"Listen, Regina, I don't like you," the cantankerous old woman had said without missing a beat, her normally gruff features a mixture of worry, grief, anger, and something that looked like grudging acceptance. "And I know the feeling's probably mutual. I'm on one side of this feud and you're on the other. There's a lot of bad blood between us, but the thing is: Red loves you. She loves the _hell_ out of you. Why? I can't figure. That doesn't matter to me, though. What does concern me is whether or not you love her."

"I do. So much," Regina had declared without delay, her nose running and her eyes probably bloodshot from how much she'd been crying the last half hour. It was not the way she'd wanted to be formally introduced to Red's beloved grandmother but life rarely gave such luxuries.

To make it worse, at the time, she'd still been battling the desire to scream and break things, but strangely, the steady presence of the elder Lucas seemed to have a calming, reassuring effect on her, much as Red did. Regina supposed it might be the werewolf thing or perhaps it was because there was a mutual devotion to Red between them, but whatever the reason, Granny being there helped her to make it through the interminable wait for news on Red.

Looking at the stern yet slightly softened visage of Granny Lucas, Regina openly admitted for the first time the words she'd been hanging on to since that kiss in her kitchen that changed everything. "She's my True Love."

Rather than acting surprised as Regina had expected, Granny just smiled, her dimples on full display. It was a nice look on a woman Regina had never seen wearing anything but a scowl.

"I figured," was Granny's simple response.

Although Granny hadn't been taken aback, Regina certainly was. "And just how did you figure that out when even I didn't know until our kiss broke the curse?"

Shrugging, the elder matriarch's eyes filled with a sagacity that spoke to her vast life experience. "I've heard tale that you appreciate bluntness, your Majesty, so I won't puff you up with pretty words. I know Red's love for you is true because no one could love you otherwise."

The words were a punch in the gut but they were both fair and accurate. "I hadn't thought of it that way but I suppose you're correct," she admitted, grimacing. "I am an unlovable person for the most part."

"You are, and yet she loves you."

Regina nodded, sad but grateful, and echoed the sentiment. "Yet she loves me."

"That's all I need to know." And with a firm clasp of Regina's upper arm, Granny turned to take a seat in the waiting room but stopped short of the door. Turning her head over her shoulder, she glanced at Regina with a look that could only be described as filthy with ill intent. "One last thing," she'd said, her voice low as if a rumbling growl. "I keep a very special dart on hand for my crossbow that is enchanted to penetrate any magical barrier or ward. If you hurt her, it'll have your name on it, and I don't miss, your Majesty."

Gulping with genuine fear, Regina licked her parched lips once before grating out an equally sincere, "Understood."

With that, Granny departed inside the waiting room to sit and then pulled her latest knitting project out of her purse to pass the time. After taking a few minutes to collect herself from reeling due to the perplexing blend of fear and relief from her exchange with Granny and her persistently prevalent anxiety for Red, Regina ambled inside to join the tense vigil. For what seemed like hours but what must have been minutes, she sat in silence, floored by Granny's unhoped for support, yet as time wore on, Snow and Emma's starkly contrasted attitudes began to be too much for her to ignore.

"What?" she'd barked when she finally had enough, directing her ire at Snow White and her spawn.

Everything in the room seemed to stop at the outburst, including Granny's knitting and the relentless chattering Snow and Emma were engaged in. Fortunately, Henry had been with David, so he didn't witness the ensuing scene.

When neither Emma nor Snow deigned to respond, her lips curled in an affronted snarl. "Have you nothing to say or are you just going to sit there and silently judge me like cowards?"

"No one is a coward here, Regina," Snow had replied, her voice as angry as Regina had ever heard. "I think you know that. But what's it to you if I judge you for what happened? What happened to Red was your fault!" Bursting from her chair, the diminutive woman began to pace while Regina watched, fuming. Nearby, Granny eyed Snow with slight displeasure. Had Regina not been so furious she would have reveled in that small victory. "But it's my fault, too," Snow continued, sounding so selfishly burdened with guilt that Regina wanted to slap it off of her dainty shoulders. "I should have made her stay away from you. I knew you were going to hurt her one day."

"And what do you suppose you could have done, my dear?" Regina responded with a mocking edge. "Were you going to lock her up in her room and throw away the key? Or perhaps you could have chained her up in the dungeons. Please. We both know there was no keeping Red away. She did precisely what she wanted." Almost imperceptibly, Granny nodded, and this time, Regina was in control enough to internally cheer her tiny triumph.

"And you just enjoyed every second of that, didn't you?" Snow replied, gritting her teeth. "Touching her...seducing her in order to mold her into whatever twisted version of her you intended to create." Granny frowned while Regina glowered, though neither said anything. "I know you hate me, Regina, but why did you have to use her to get to me? Why couldn't you have chosen someone else to play with or just killed me instead?"

"My God, could you possibly be more conceited?" Regina had then spat, incensed at the implication. "What Red and I built had...has _nothing_ to do with you. And I didn't want to kill you, you insolent brat. Had I desired you dead, I would have appeared in your room long ago and snapped your scrawny little neck."

While Granny seemed content to watch things shake out between the mortal enemies, Emma – the cooler head of the group – chose that moment to interject. "Guys, chill," she barked. "This is not the time or the place for this. Not when Ruby is in there fighting for her life!"

"Don't you think I know that?" Regina shouted. Her raised voice drew the attention of several nurses that were flitting through the halls. She sighed, reining in her runaway temper. "I know it's my fault that Red got hurt, and though it will haunt me for the rest of my days, I accept my role in that. But I won't stand for _anyone_ questioning the way I feel about her. Ever. I love her!"

"You don't," Snow had countered assuredly, a frown taking up residence on her lips. "You're not capable of love and haven't been for a long time."

Standing from her own seat, Regina approached Snow with deliberate steps that made the shorter woman stumble back a pace. Springing up, Emma stood behind her mother, though Regina glared a warning that made Emma back off a bit. Again, Granny did nothing, sitting and observing neutrally.

"Oh, is that so?" Regina then drawled, pleased at her ability to still strike fear into people's hearts just by her mere presence.

In response, Snow nodded while Emma remained in tense silence. "It is."

"In that case," she had then said with a boastful grin on her face, "you'll be surprised to find out that it was not our illustrious Savior who broke the curse as was prophesied." Of course, if Emma hadn't flirted with Ruby in the first place, Regina would never had the courage to act, so in a manner of speaking, Emma still was a savior of a sort. Regina was not about to admit that, though, nor would she if a thousand years passed. Leaning into Snow's personal space, she'd then put the cherry on top of her gloat sundae. "I did."

"Impossible," Snow gasped, looking around to Granny, who confirmed Regina's assertion with a sharp nod. Turning back to Regina with eyes saucer-wide, Snow breathed out, "How?"

"Are you so daft that I have to spell it out for you? I should think you ought to know with the way you sang its praises after Charming woke you up," Regina had crowed triumphantly. "And while the sleeping curse I put you under was very potent, the Dark Curse was the most powerful curse ever cast. Therefore, only one thing could have broken it, for only one act is powerful enough to break any curse."

Looking pale, Snow's bravado faltered having been mortally wounded by the delicious irony. "True Love's kiss..."

Grinning arrogantly, Regina proceeded to rub salt in it. "That's right. While I know it's as hard for you to imagine that Red loves me as it is that I love her, the proof is, as they say, in the pudding. What Red and I share is True Love, the very same thing you share with your beloved Prince _Charming_." Her smile then transformed into a dark scowl. "So, with that in mind, if you should ever feel so inclined to accuse me of such a thing again, please recall this fact so that you might refrain. It would be in your best interest because I will not show so much patience or restraint next time. Am I clear?" Still gaping, Snow appeared too stricken to respond. "Am I clear!"

"Y-yes," the pixie-haired woman nodded, her face trembling.

With that, Regina returned to her seat with a satisfied swagger. When she took her seat, she caught Granny giving her a rather stealthy grin, as if she were projecting her approval of the way Regina had handled the situation. Warmth suffused Regina's chest. She hadn't realized how much she actually wanted Granny to be on her side. The old woman's opinion was of the highest value to Red, and though Regina knew Red would never allow Granny's disapproval come between them, being at odds with the woman who had sacrificed so much to raise her would have torn Red apart inside. It was an immense relief, then, to know that Granny had meant what she said. So long as Regina remained faithful to Red, Granny would remain supportive of their relationship. It was more than Regina ever dared to dream she would receive from the austere Lucas matriarch.

For the rest of the wait that passed, Snow kept her opinions to herself, an additional grace which Regina was immensely thankful for. Joining her mother in silence was Emma, although it was difficult for Regina to guess what the woman was feeling. Unlike Snow, Emma was almost as good at concealing her feelings as Regina was, and as such it was hard to get a handle on her.

It turned out that Emma was more open to accepting her, as well as her relationship with Red, than anyone else in town, which was probably because she thought so highly of Red via Ruby. Whatever the cause, Emma's support proved to be invaluable due to the fact that life in Storybrooke was never normal. Several times over the past year, the Savior had stood by Regina's side in situations that required magic, wielding their powers together to save the town that so many people had once desired to abandon. And whereas Victor was relegated to a friendly relationship with Red alone, Emma had become almost as much Regina's friend as Red's. With the way they'd started out that night Emma brought Henry back from Boston, she never would have imagined it could happen, but it did. Life could be as strange as it was wonderful and terrible.

"Hello! Earth to Regina."

Shaking herself out of her thoughts once more, Regina frowned at the sound of Red's voice. "I'm sorry. What?"

Cocking her head to the side very much like her alter ego might, a look of concern crossed Red's features. "You checked out there for a second. Again. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Regina waved her off. Red's concern was sweet but unnecessary.

"Are you sure? I know talking about that day is hard for you." Taking Regina's hand, Red pressed several tender kisses to the sensitive skin on the back of it. "Emma's told me a bit about what happened but I'm sure she left things out for my sake."

Regina looked away, not wanting to see the inevitable reproach in Red's eyes. "She did so at my request."

Shrugging as if unaffected, Red just smiled and leaned in for a kiss. "That's fine. I respect your judgment, always have. I just want you to know that you can talk to me. I don't want you to feel like I'm too fragile to hear about it or whatever. I'm a big girl, you know."

"I'm aware," Regina smiled crookedly, suddenly thinking about all of the 'big girl' activities she had indulged in with Red recently. "However, that doesn't mean I don't feel the need to protect you." Red opened her mouth to protest but Regina stopped her with a gentle finger to her full lips. "No need to object, my love. I promise that I'll speak to someone about this if I feel like there's a need. For now, though, they're just dreams. In my experience, they'll go away on their own, and believe me, I have plenty of it."

Humming, Red pursed her lips. "I hope so, but you know, I was talking to Henry the other day and he said that his grandfather has a theory about your dreams. He didn't really clarify but maybe you should go talk to him."

Regina laughed. "Charming has a theory? That I would _love_ to hear, if only for my entertainment."

"No, not David," Red said, wincing slightly. "Gold."

Could she never escape that man? As if it were not bad enough that he played a starring role in producing the Evil Queen, come to find out, Rumple was related to Henry by blood via his long-lost son, Baelfire, aka Neal Cassidy. Reaching Neal had been Rumple's primary motive in goading Regina into casting the Curse. Nearly a year had passed since that discovery and Regina still found it hard to digest that the Dark One was her son's grandfather. And now Rumple dared to inject Henry into their feud?

Turning on the bed to better face Red, Regina fixed her with a glare. "Gold? What rubbish has that imp been feeding to my son?"

Red shifted uncomfortably. "As I said, Henry didn't specify what Gold's theory was. He just thought it might be a good idea for you to talk to him."

"Do you not remember what that man did to me? What he did to you?" Regina asked, angry that Rumplestiltskin was trying to integrate himself back into her life, and through her son no less. Well, she wouldn't have it. "He's not to be trusted. He never does anything that doesn't benefit him in some way."

"I do remember," Red said in a calming tone, "and while Gold might be a man of questionable character, he is Henry's grandfather, and he seems to genuinely love the kid. Look," she sighed, squeezing Regina's hand, "I don't trust him as far as I can throw him and I'll never forgive him for what he did to you or to me, but I think that since Belle came back and he found his son, he's kind of turning over a new leaf. It _has_ been over a year since he tried anything hinky."

Regina scoffed. If her own redemption had been unlikely, Rumple's was even more so. The man had hundreds of years of villainy on her. Compared to the Dark One, the Evil Queen was a small fish, for he was the puppet master of the Enchanted Forest, the manipulator of all manipulators, the instigator of nearly every foul deed done in the past two hundred plus years. To trust Rumple was the height of insanity, for even when being magnanimous, he had an agenda.

"You may be right," she replied, "but be that as it may, I'm uncomfortable with my son spending time with Rumple alone if he's going to start whispering in his ear."

"I get it," Red nodded in agreement, "and I'm with you on that. I just...just think about it, okay? I'm worried about you. I love you, Regina, so when you hurt, I hurt, too. You're hurting right now and it's eating me up that I can't do anything to help you."

Her expression softening, Regina sighed. Leave it to Red to make her feel guilty about her own torments. Regina knew it wasn't purposeful but it was effective all the same.

"But you are helping me, Red," she extended a hand to brush over Red's cheek, then slid it upwards to tangle in her luxurious mass of chestnut hair. "Just you being here with me is enough. So, I'll be okay, I promise. I've dealt with much worse in my life and that without you by my side, loving me and supporting me in a way no one ever has. You're my rock. As long as you're with me, I won't ever crumble."

With watery eyes, Red leaned in, her face painted with such a profound look of adoration that Regina's heart skipped a beat.

"That was one of the sweetest things you've ever said to me," she breathed with stars in her eyes. "I think it deserves a reward."

Regina quirked an intrigued eyebrow. "Is that so?"

Red nodded, her eyes now twinkling. "It is."

Grinning back at Red, Regina pressed forward to rub their noses together in an Eskimo kiss. Scrunching her nose up adorably, Red returned the grin.

"Well, then," Regina said, licking her lips with anticipation, a reaction that Red noticed, causing her pupils to dilate, "far be it from me to decline so gracious an offer."

Breathing heavily through her nose, Red's pale skin flushed. "Damn. Why do you have to be so hot when you go all politician on me?" And then Red pounced, surging forward to capture Regina's lips, swallowing up her laugh in a searing kiss that had her pressing as tightly into Red's body as possible.

Tilting her head just slightly, Regina deepened the kiss, moaning her approval into Red's pliant mouth. Settling into one another, the exchange of heated kisses shifted into something else beyond the physical, something searching and reassuring, born out of a mutual trust and devotion for one another that surpassed even the throes of passion. It was love, the deep and abiding kind, an outpouring of two hearts beating as one, speaking to one another through a language only known to them, and punctuated by slow, thorough kisses.

It was only after many wonderfully long minutes that Regina pulled away. Extricating herself from her partner's embrace, she chuckled at the lovestruck expression Red was wearing. Red's face always was an open book, and the look of awed reverence on it at present humbled Regina tremendously. Inwardly, she suffused with warm as it hit her once again just how loved she was. Only Red could make her feel that way with only a look.

"While I would love to continue this," she said as she smoothed the well-kissed look off of her Red's face with a gentle hand, "tomorrow comes early, and you do need your rest for your double shift."

A quirked eyebrow was leveled at her in response. "Yeah?" Red drawled. "Well, so do you, Madam Mayor."

"I agree," Regina replied, patting the mattress next to her in an inviting manner, "which is why you're going to settle in here and I'm going to hold you in my arms. That always helps me sleep."

"Oooooh," Red breathed, eyes wide with excitement. "I get to be the little spoon? Awesome!"

Slapping Red's shoulder, Regina chuckled. "Child."

"You love it." Green eyes were dancing with happiness. Regina could not refute the statement even if she wanted to.

"Yes, I do. More than you'll ever know."

After leaning down to share one last sweet kiss, Regina guided Red back under the covers. Once she was situated on her side facing the wall away from Regina, Red let out a contented breath and snuggled into her pillow. Regina wasted no time in settling in beside her, pressing the full length of her body against Red's slim frame. With one arm underneath Red's pillow, she brought the other around, burrowing it beneath the hem of Red's tank top to rest against the smooth skin of her flat tummy. Both women sighed in contentment.

"I love you," Red whispered sleepily as she placed her hand over Regina's and linked their fingers together.

Regina smiled. She would never tire of hearing those words. "I love you, too." And then she closed her eyes and drifted off into a dreamless and peaceful sleep.


	12. Coming To Terms With Reality

**Standard Disclaimer** : The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately and I will correct them.

 **Chapter 12** – Coming To Terms With Reality

The next day, Regina barged in through the doors of the Pawn Shop, a woman on a mission. All morning long Red's suggestion that she consult Rumplestilskin had been weighing on her mind, robbing her of any attempts at concentration, which left her feeling compelled to seek resolution. At first blush, approaching her former mentor was a terrible idea that she'd dismissed out of hand, as personal exposure to Rumple's devious tendencies had taught her that there was no divining the motivation behind his offer of help. Hell, for all she knew he could be plotting to use the consultation as an opportunity to gain an advantage in their old game of one-upping each other by learning more about this most recent chink in her armor, namely the dreams that were plaguing her to the point of weakening her normally stalwart mental barriers.

While most would not utilize such an underhanded move, Rumple was not the kind of man to be sympathetic. Quite the opposite, he was the kind to ruthlessly exploit any vulnerability he discovered no matter the consequences to the person he was manipulating. This fundamental feature of his character was one he'd diligently ingrained into Regina when she was his pupil, so she knew very well he was likely to use any point of attack the situation might provide to great effect. To what ends, she could not guess, but his track record dictated that it would not be good.

With that the case, she figured her very presence here at the Gold's Pawn Shop must be an indication as to her present mental state. It was such a preposterous idea to think Rumplestiltskin might actually want to help her that it should be a certifiable offense, and yet here she was, so desperate for answers that she was willing to take aid even if it came at a cost she otherwise would be unwilling to incur.

Truth be told, Regina was more than a little worried by her inability to cope with these dreams. As a person who had a long history of suffering nightmares, she could normally handle them by pushing them to the back of her mind until they faded for a while, giving her a temporary reprieve in which she could rebuild her defenses. The strategy worked for years. Yet these most recent dreams kept coming back time after time, even when she tried medicating herself or magicking herself to sleep to stop them from reoccurring. It was only out of a desire to protect Red that she had shrugged the dreams off as inconsequential when confronted about them, but in truth there was no denying that they were becoming problematic.

Not only had Regina been reduced to existing on little to no sleep most nights – it had been almost a month now since she had slept for more than two hours at a time – but even during the day she was haunted by what she saw in them. It was as if the visions were ghostly specters sent to harry her every waking moment until she was consumed by the emotions that accompanied them. The entire month had been a harrowing trial, but over the past few days, things got progressively worse until she found herself teetering at the point of resorting to extreme measures. It was the last in the series of nightmares that finally pushed her over the edge, and thus the grudging visit to her former mentor.

As Regina stepped through the doorway into the shop, the bell that alerted its proprietor to incoming customers sounded wildly from the force of her entrance. She hated the sound of that blasted bell. Every time she visited the shop, its jingling was a cacophony that rang in her ears and reverberated through the open albeit cluttered room, reminding her she was yet again somewhere she did not want to be. Ignoring the knickknacks and baubles that littered the musty old shop, she headed straight for the counter where Rumplestiltskin was working, bent over an antique clock with a small pair of tweezers in his hand.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, your Majesty," he greeted without bothering to look up, an annoying habit he'd always flaunted because he knew how much it annoyed her.

Regina scowled, forgoing pleasantries she felt he did not deserve. "I hear you've been talking to my son about things that don't concern you."

"Is that so?" Rumple chirped, tipping his head up from his work to smirk at her. "Far be it from me to intrude on private family matters, but it was not I who brought up your troubling dreams. Henry volunteered the information."

"Yet that did not stop you from offering your two cents, did it?" she sneered. "You never did learn when to butt out of my life."

Rumple hummed, his eyes gleaming. "I wouldn't characterize my interference in such contemptuous terms. I assure you I meant no harm or disrespect. I merely informed my grandson that I had my theories concerning your...troubles, which Henry was all too interested to hear due to his belief that they are distressing you."

Leaning forward, Regina rested her palms on the surface of the counter until her flesh was pressing into the aged wood there. "And I'll just bet it thrilled you to no end to hear of my nocturnal torments."

"Believe it or not, I take no pleasure in your pain, Regina," he answered, dropping his tools to the counter to focus on her. "I only suggested to Henry that I had a theory because I believe it might bring you some measure of relief."

Regina didn't believe him. Not even a little bit. When he wanted to, Rumple could be very convincing with his words to the point he sounded sincere. There were times that Regina actually thought he was, though even then what decency he retained from when he was a human being was never enough to prevent him from acting every bit the cruel and unmerciful opportunist. Given the chance he was currently being presented with to rub salt in the wounds of a protege who had betrayed him more than once must have seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. She wondered, then, why he was not doing so, why he was being so patient and seemingly understanding.

Of course, this was not the first time Regina had been on the receiving end of Rumple's impressive attempts at sincerity. On rare occasions during her training, he would intimate that he cared for her in some almost familial way beyond her being his star pupil. Looking back, Regina was fairly certain it was a tactic to elicit compliance, but even if wasn't, that sliver of genuine feeling hadn't stopped him from ruthlessly crushing what little remained of her hopes and dreams. Rumplestilskin had taken a broken, depressed, and bitterly angry young woman and molded her into something she never wanted to be, a monster without a conscience that she hated every bit as much as she came to love. Regina had been foolish enough to believe the Dark One once but never again. Her lesson was too dearly bought.

Deciding to hear him out if nothing else for the sake of the time she'd lost traveling to his shop, she quirked an eyebrow, her face painted with a healthy amount of skepticism. "I'm hesitant to ask, but because I'm feeling generous today, I'll bite." She wasn't feeling generous but he didn't need to know that. "What is your theory?"

The look Rumple gave Regina sent a shiver down her spine. It was the same one he got when he was about to teach her about a convoluted property of magic or an abstract principle that required a great deal of open-mindedness to grasp. Those lessons often ended with Regina nursing a splitting headache while trying to wrap her mind around the endless applications of the lesson. The worst of them were the detailed discourses concerning the mind-twisting mechanics of how magic actually worked, and while Regina was a gifted learner and of keen acuity there were some things he revealed that were so difficult to comprehend that they seemed utterly impossible.

Yet as she always was back then, she was so stricken by curiosity that she leaned in a bit to listen more closely.

"There's a particular set of theories," he said, "that physicists in this world call the multiverse. Have you heard of it?"

Regina wracked her brain for a moment, trying to recall if she'd ever heard such a thing, but came up empty. She'd never been one for reading highbrow science fiction or watching programs about such things on television. That was more up Henry's alley than hers.

"Can't say that I have."

"Well, then, let me enlighten you," Rumple then said in his most professorial tone of voice. There was a time long ago when Regina had loved hearing it because it meant she was about to be taught something of supreme interest. As he talked, Rumple walked out from behind the counter, his cane now in hand, clicking on the hardwood floors as he moved much like Red's had. But unlike with Red, the sound of Rumple's cane produced an eery feeling of discomfort, as if it were connecting her from past to present with the stupidly naive girl she'd once been. "These physicists pose that our universe is not alone, that we are merely one among many, many others. There are, they say, an infinite number of parallel universes, some very similar to our own while others diverge dramatically.

"For instance," he gestured with his hand, "in one parallel universe, you may never have allowed yourself to feel love during the Curse, causing it to persist until the Savior broke it as was prophesied."

It didn't take a magnifying glass for Regina to read between those lines. Rumple had chosen that example for the sole purpose of expressing his displeasure at her throwing a wrench in his carefully laid plans.

The Curse he had crafted was intricately detailed down to the last letter, so imagine his surprise when he discovered Emma had not broken it as he had devised. The look on Rumple's face when she broke the news to him of how the Curse was truly broken still made her tingle with gratification. Regina had thought rubbing Snow's face in her True Love's kiss with Red was fun, but it was not nearly as satisfying as when she'd casually mentioned it to her former teacher. So to see that it was still sticking in his craw made her inordinately amused. _Choke on it you old goat_ , she thought, crowing inwardly with delight, though outwardly she remained impassive.

"While only one small choice made by one person," Rumplestiltskin went on without indicating he perceived any reaction from her, "the results would have wide implications, as you might imagine. Yet in another, things may be vastly different because many different choices were made, resulting in a reality as foreign to our own as a daisy growing on the Moon. Who knows, in one of those worlds you might well have run away with your stable boy. Perhaps there, that other version of yourself might be with him now, old and happy with her children and grandchildren around her."

At the mention of Daniel, Regina stiffened in place. If Rumple's theory were true, in another world she might never have been forced to marry Leopold, never lost Daniel, never turned to magic to cope with the phantom pain of his death and the agony of being married to a man she loathed. Somewhere out there in the infinitely complex cosmos, she might be happy with Daniel and living out the life she had dreamed of since the moment she met him. The very thought made her ache with conflicted sadness.

The source of her conflict came from the thought that suddenly struck her: what if that scenario were to be offered to her? She didn't have to think it through to know what she would do. If she was ever presented with a choice between giving up the life she now had with Red for a chance at happiness with Daniel, there was no question in her mind that she would choose Red. While Regina had loved Daniel with all of her heart, the untainted girl that loved the winsome and innocent stable boy was long gone. All that was left in her place was a woman with scars on her heart that had hardened her and experiences that made her skeptical. Yet that very same callous, cynical woman had fallen in love with an equally damaged girl who did not let her sorrow define her as Regina had.

Red brought light back into Regina's life, and it was a light she was better able to appreciate because of her long acquaintance with the darkness. With Daniel, she had lacked the perspective that suffering through so much tragedy afforded her, and with that perspective came the realization that what she had with Red now was precious beyond compare, even more precious than the young love she once shared with Daniel. Though it pained Regina to admit it, not even her stable boy – as wonderful as he had been – could measure up to that.

Crossing her arms over her chest to hold in the discomfort she was feeling, Regina cut her eyes over at Rumplestiltskin. "And you subscribe to this theory?"

Shrugging, he meandered over to a shelf and picked up a snow globe depicting a little girl and a faun standing next to lit lamp post in the middle of a snowy forest. He gave it shake then watched the artificial snowflakes fall, a sideways grin on his lips. "In a sense."

Regina sighed with exasperation. "Is this going to be one of those conversations where you take pains to be as ambiguous as possible?"

His smile intensified into a sardonic grin. "Perhaps."

Growling, Regina stepped up into Rumplestiltskin's face, her restraint slipping. "Listen, I don't have the time or the patience for this. Explain yourself in a concise and timely fashion this instant or I'll have to reconsider giving my approval for Henry to apprentice with you."

Though she wanted to forbid it with every fiber of her being, Regina had been powerless to resist the pleading in Henry's eyes when he'd broached the topic of that particular offer. Henry had the most trusting, beautiful heart, but sometimes it made him blind to the truth. Right now, she wasn't sure he was capable of seeing beyond the doting mask of his ambiguously aligned grandfather to the imp lurking beneath, so it seemed wrong of her as a mother to even contemplate allowing her son to work with a man who had reeled in a more innocent version of her with pretty words and then crushed her into dust. But the more Henry argued his case, the more she became aware that this was one of those things that she needed to let him do because controlling his life had not worked out so well for her in the past. It was time, she realized, to let Henry start making decisions of his own.

When she talked to Red about it later that night, Red proposed that Regina allow Henry to apprentice with his grandfather so long as someone trustworthy was were present for the first several weeks. He would only be helping for a few hours after school and on the weekends so Red volunteered to chaperon when she was off work and indicated she thought Belle would agree to fill in when she couldn't be there. Because the proposal was a logical one, Regina agreed, though she stressed to Red that it was to be a probationary period during which they ascertained whether or not Rumple had an agenda he was working at through Henry.

It was tragic that they even had to go through such elaborate pretenses. That Henry's own grandfather might use him in such a petty way shouldn't even be possible, yet Rumplestiltskin had proven himself quite capable of such loathsome behavior before. For hundreds of years he had worked his agenda through all who served his interest, whether innocent or not, young or old, rich or poor. Rumple was not biased in his chicanery. To him all that mattered was his objective, and to hell with anyone who got in his way. Regina supposed that was where she got it from...well, that and her mother.

With Red's promised support, Regina next reached out to Emma, who also agreed with the added amendment that she or Neal would help keep watch over Rumple. Though Regina was not quite sure as to how much Neal could be depended on where his father was concerned, she took Emma's word that they wouldn't allow anything to happen to Henry at face value. After that, since all relevant parties had been consulted, Regina informed Henry of her decision.

To say he was happy was a sore understatement. He was beyond thrilled not only that his family seemed to be patching up old hurts but that his mother trusted his judgment enough to know he would not be corrupted by his wily grandfather's schemes. While Regina didn't have the heart to tell him that she wouldn't be making amends with Rumple any time soon, the part about her trusting him was true. Jumping into her arms, Henry proceeded to squeeze Regina's waist for all he was worth, just like he was a young child again and she had given him the toy he wanted most for Christmas. The buoyancy of his joy was infectious, lifting her spirits and helping to dispel her worries for at least a moment.

That said, her agreement was wholly dependent upon whether or not Rumple helped her with her current situation without attaching strings to his aid. This was his first test and up until that fit of mischief that had prompted him to try her patience he had been doing rather well.

At her threat though, Rumple's cocky expression staggered and he leaned back, clutching his cane in a death grip. "You were going to agree to that?"

"I _was_ ," she replied, brandishing her leverage like a loaded gun, "but now I'm not so certain. It seems as if you're enjoying playing games with me through my son a little too much. And I don't really care if it offends you or hurts you because you're his grandfather, but I won't have him caught between us. Henry is not a pawn on your chessboard, Rumple."

Clearing his throat with wide almost fearful eyes, the Dark One nodded. "No, he isn't. Very well, then, I'll cut to the chase."

Regina gave him a saccharine smile that was dripping with sarcasm. "I would appreciate that very much, thank you."

Almost imperceptibly, Rumple rolled his eyes. His annoyance at her having gained an advantage over him, however small, was showing through such a juvenile tic. It was a small win that made Regina disproportionately pleased.

"As I was saying," he then continued, "I can't say I accept the current theories held in this world because I know very little as fact from experience. What I do know, however, is that such parallel universes do exist."

With narrowed eyes, Regina replied, "If you know so little through experience, how can you be certain of their existence?"

"Sharp as ever," he commented with a proud grin, though it was restrained. "I gained knowledge of them when I took the gifts belonging to a seer I encountered during my early days being the Dark One. I won't go into details, but in accordance with catching glimpses of the future, I also was given brief windows into the present, though it was always different from what I was experiencing in reality. Still, I knew they were real because I could see myself and my other self could see me as well, but there were subtle differences that told me it was not really me but another version of myself. Do you follow me so far?"

In a more overtly infantile reaction of her own, Regina scoffed as if insulted. "Of course. I'm not some simpleton unable to grasp complex concepts. You wouldn't have chosen me to cast your precious curse if I were."

"Very true," Rumple conceded. "In any case, while I could glimpse the future through meditation with the gift, those windows into the alternate present only came to me in dreams. For a while, I thought that's all they were, simple dreams, but when I looked into my memories I realized to my great surprise that they lacked that shimmering foggy nature of dreams that is always present when viewing them with magic, meaning they were not dreams but actual memories of another plane of existence."

"Okay," Regina drawled, shifting her weight to her other leg. "So what does that have to do with me?"

"I believe you're experiencing something very similar to what I did," he said simply.

"But I'm not a seer. How can I see such things if I lack the gift?"

"That I can't explain," Rumple shrugged, "but I would like to suggest that you test your memories to find out for sure whether what you are seeing is real or not."

Seeing as his suggestion made sense, Regina nodded and gave a deep breath, then released it slowly. Alright. I suppose it couldn't hurt." _And there's n_ _o time like the present_ , she thought.

Waving her hand, she summoned her magic to search her memories, feeling it begin to swirl around the edges of her mind. It was not unlike the magic used to power a dreamcatcher, but being more direct in nature, such a spell tended to be quite uncomfortable. Ignoring the slightly sharp sensation of magic entering her mind, she commanded it to search for her dream from the night before. It obeyed immediately and within a second, the dream was popping up in her mind's eye.

Like a flood, the vision filled her conscious thought until she was reliving it. There in the near distance she could see her family mausoleum with a crowd gathered around it dressed uniformly in black. Feeling strangely attached yet absent, Regina followed her own movements as she pressed through the mass of dour faced people holding Henry's hand, talked to Emma, and then went inside to stand next Red's casket. With her heart pounding a blistering rhythm in her chest, she then watched Snow break down, felt herself lose control, and then all hell broke loose.

Bursting from the grip of the magic, Regina pitched forward, her breath stolen from her lungs. She'd seen no indication whatsoever it was a dream. "It was like I was really there," she panted. "It was so real. I could feel everything, see everything, smell everything."

"It's as I thought then," Rumple nodded sagely. "What you have been experiencing are not dreams but glimpses of an alternate reality. May I ask what it is you've seen?"

Staggering a bit from her magic exertion, Regina leaned heavily on the counter. Her head fell limply into her hands. "Only terrible things." Clenching her eyes shut, she battled to pull herself together. Out of a sense of respect and fear that still persisted due to the power her former mentor wielded, she didn't want to appear weak in front of him.

When she was recovered enough to straighten up again, Regina caught Rumplestiltskin's eyes. "I've only had three such dreams." Her voice was even deeper than normal, rough with emotion. She wasn't sure why she was sharing this information, particularly when she'd lied about her dreams to Red, having done so out of an irrational need to keep her lover from finding out that there was more than one dream rather than a single recurring one. She'd wanted to keep Red from worrying about her, but where Rumplestiltskin was concerned, her motives for hiding the details of the dreams were even more abundant and well-founded.

Regina was well aware of the Dark One's penchant for keeping score and using what means he had at his disposal to manipulate people, so it was not difficult to predict the valuable information he might glean from what she'd seen. He would learn that not only was she going soft, but that she had developed a vulnerability that left her ripe for attack. The reaction she had at the mausoleum after Red's death only served as evidence of how fragile her hold on redemption was. Surely as clever as Rumple was, he would realize that Red was a target he could strike at in order to disable her, knowing that she was the only person in Storybrooke who knew enough about him to combat him openly. Armed with that knowledge, Red would be in constant danger of landing in the Dark One's crosshairs.

Still, while Regina was aware of that, she felt like she _had_ to tell him. Red was right, after all. She needed to talk to someone about this before it was too late and even though he was admittedly dangerous, Rumple was the only person qualified to both understand her predicament and help her resolve it.

"In the first, I was with Red on the couch," she began, her voice almost far away as if dreamlike in quality. "We were discussing how well Henry was doing in school when she mentioned that she'd come to love him as if he were her own, that he was a part of her pack like I was, and that even though it was already so to her, she wanted to make it official to the world. She proposed and I accepted." Her voice hitched at the memory of watching the joy play all over Red's face when she accepted the proposal.

After Leopold, Regina had never wanted to marry again for obvious reasons. To Regina, such social constructs had lost any positive value. They were a means of control, a man made method to define or restrain a person's sense of worth, but while she had long ago lost her favorable view of the institution, Red did not have such an experience to taint her view of it. Red, unlike Regina, still believed in fairy tale endings even though she had gone through nearly as much hell in her life as Regina had, which was one of many things that made her so special. She had a dogged way of clinging to hope that made her an admittedly fit companion for Snow, a woman whose own relentless optimism had once sickened Regina. Being with Red had shown her the error of the kind of callous dismissal of hope as something that could not be feasibly maintained. Every morning she woke up to the sight of Red's face, she was reminded that hope was real and it was worth holding on to.

But that didn't make it any easier to process what she had seen in that first dream. The day after she'd had it, she sat down and really thought about why her brain might have conjured such a scenario. In examining the evidence, all the times they'd walked by Storybrooke's lone bridal shop began to play through her mind, and with those memories, she gained a new understanding of the look Red would get in her eyes whenever she spotted a particularly beautiful dress. Whenever that happened, Regina wrote off the interest as one of those things a young woman like Red might be prone to display, but with the limited perspective the dream offered, she realized that in those momentary views into Red's most private thoughts, she was seeing a woman no longer in the present with her but had traversed the length and breadth of her imagination to somewhere else far away, a place where hopes and dreams still came true, a place that she would have believed Regina would not want to go with her.

It was with startling clarity that it finally dawned on Regina that Red actually wanted to get married. The thought was initially so abhorrent that she worked late for a whole week to avoid her partner. Her previous experience had all but ruined her where marriage was concerned. Conspiring together, Leopold and her mother had stripped Regina of the vital power of choice, assigning to her a similar value as the breeding stock her father sold to supplement his inherited fortune. In one fell swoop, she lost her freedom, her innocence, and her virtue by marrying a man old enough to be her father, and the subsequent experiences numbed her to the point that she lost the ability to love for a long, long time.

But to Red, marriage was not the symbol of an abusive relationship. Her unblemished heart still viewed things optimistically, so to her marriage would not seem like an imposed definition on her intrinsic value as a woman, but rather an outward expression of what she felt in her heart for the person she loved. Red's desire to marry was not a claim of possession on Regina or an effort to construct yet another prison in which a skittish and broken woman such as she was might be confined; rather it was a public proclamation of her love and a ceremonial representation of her wish that their fortunes and happiness be inextricably and forever intertwined. Red wanted to get married because she believed in what they were building together and that it would last, but also because she trusted Regina implicitly with everything she had to offer.

So while Regina would never be a big fan of marriage, when she looked at things from Red's point of view, she could at least understand enough to begin entertaining the possibility that such a sacrifice was one she was willing to make, if only for Red's sake. After all, how was it fair to deny Red something she desired after she had made sacrifice after sacrifice, even to the point of laying down her own life? What kind of relationship was that? A one sided one, that's what. When thinking about things that way, Regina realized that without even meaning to she had become her own mother, imposing her beliefs on Red just as had been done to her, though to a much less brutally invasive degree. Even so, it gave her enough pause to reconsider her position.

"Well, that's interesting," Rumple commented, drawing Regina out of her own headspace. "What about the second dream?"

Regina looked away with pain evident in her eyes. This dream hadn't made sense until the final nightmare in the series interrupted her sleep. In light of that, however, it became all the more disturbing.

"I was in the hospital. I had blood all over my clothes and I went into a restroom to wash it off. But no matter how hard I scrubbed, it wouldn't come off. Still, I tried and tried until I became so distraught that I lost all sense of time and bearing. Some time after, I went looking for Red but was unable to find her. Finally, I wound up walking down a corridor, and when I rounded the corner, Emma was there, crying and holding her mother in her arms. I couldn't see Snow's face but I could tell something horrible had happened. I opened my mouth to speak but woke up before I could say anything."

"I can understand why that might be disconcerting," Rumple said. "And the last?"

"The last was the worst," Regina stated, shuddering at the thought of replaying the memory for a second time in such a brief period. Instead of torturing herself, she decided to give Rumple a succinct summary. "Red was dead and Henry and I were at my family mausoleum for the funeral. I was standing next to the casket when I just lost it. I started screaming and my magic went haywire. I think I collapsed the building on myself and everyone else in it. It was ghastly."

With a deep breath, Rumple furrowed his brows, grimacing at the description of her dream. "That does sound terrible. May I ask if you had the other two dreams multiple times?"

Regina indulged the curiosity only because she was suddenly so tired all she wanted to do was go home and curl up on the couch until Henry got home. "Yes, I did."

"Very interesting, indeed," Rumple replied, and then began tapping his pursed lips with his index finger while in intense contemplation.

For almost a minute, Regina waited on him to elaborate, but when it appeared he was not soon to do so, she audibly sighed and pinching the bridge of her nose. "As I said earlier, I haven't got all day," she groused, "so tell me what it is you think these 'glimpses' mean, and do so plainly."

Dropping his finger from his lips, Rumple nodded once and then shuffled back behind the counter, laying his cane atop it. After placing his hands over the cane, he said, "As I stated earlier, I believe you were seeing another reality where those things really happened. Why? I can't be absolutely certain, but if I were to wager a guess, I think you've been wrestling with something or several things in your life recently that have triggered these visions. What that is remains for you to discover on your own, but I suggest you do so quickly or else they will continue until eventually driving you into madness."

With frightened eyes, Regina replied, "Do you really think it will go that far?"

Rumple nodded sadly. "Indeed. It almost happened to me. I had to expend considerable effort to expunge myself of that ability, but with the way magic is behaving here, neither of us have access to anything potent enough to block your mind from these visions. Since that is the case, the only recourse you have is to reconcile yourself to what you're struggling with and no one can do that for you."

Straightening, Regina brushed a hand over her clothes and assumed a regal posture. "Very well. Whether or not I consider your advice, thank you all the same." The words tasted just a little bit like crow but she meant them.

Cocking his head to the side, Rumple smiled, a not totally unpleasant expression from the usually slimy man. "You're welcome."

With their business concluded, Regina turned away promptly to leave. She had no more need to be in the presence of one of the three individuals most responsible for her dramatic fall from grace. Being in the Pawn Shop always made her apprehensive, but with so much on her mind, the effect was amplified. She needed to get the hell out of there before a stress-fueled migraine hit her.

Making her way toward the exit, she paused just before grasping the handle. However much she distrusted Rumple and however much bad history there was between them, he had passed his first test. She hoped it could be the beginning of a better life for him but doubted it severely.

Still, since she had herself been given her chance after chance, she felt obligated to at least try one last time with her former teacher. Glancing back at him, she said in parting, "Have a good day, Rumple, and do tell Belle that Red and I said 'hello', won't you?"

He nodded, seeming to understand the tentative olive branch for what it was. "I'll do that."

And with that, Regina walked out of the shop and into the warmth of the sunlight. Rather than alleviate her burdens, what she had learned only left her more conflicted. She hadn't wanted to say anything but Rumple had convinced her that his theory was actually not just a theory but reality. She could feel it in her bones. In the light of that, she already knew why she was having these visions and it was, as Red would say, freaking her out. What she was going to do about it, however, was a whole other problem.


	13. Not Yet, But Someday

**Notes** : Well, folks, the end is nearly upon us and I have to say I'm sad. I'll miss working on this little story. I had only meant it to be a 7 chapter fic for RQ week, but it, like Regina's intentions for Ruby, spiraled out of control. Nonetheless, as my first full length publication, I'm proud of it. Now, the enormous task of finishing and editing my other works is before me, and it is quite daunting. I can't say how long it'll be before I start posting them but I will try my best.

Also, I didn't get any response from the last chapter, so I'm guessing it was hard to follow or substandard or not a lot of people read on Tuesday. Whatever the reason, I hope the chapter was at least somewhat coherent. If there's something I could have done differently let me know. I want to improve as a writer but I can't do that without feedback.

Anyway, on to the chapter where we get some more forward progress as well as a bit of regression. But never fear, I don't do sad endings. I am way too much a hopeless romantic for that. Hope y'all enjoy. Thanks for reading and reviewing and such, it really does mean a lot to me. Later, y'all!

 **Standard Disclaimer** : The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately and I will correct them.

 **Chapter 13** – Not Yet, But Someday

"Oh, my God, Regina! You won't believe what happened tonight."

When Red burst through the front door full of energy even though it was nearly midnight, Regina made no reply. Normally, Henry would be upstairs asleep so such an outburst would be greeted by a harsh glare but since she was alone in the house, Regina sat in silence. Besides, she figured she would not get in a word edgewise until Red was through with her tale.

After the sounds of her partner closing the door behind her and locking up reached her ears, Regina then heard Red begin to make her way up to the landing and then through the hallway. Her keys jingled from her expressive method of talking, highlighting her words with hand gestures. The more excited Red was about something, the more her hands worked while she talked, a rather endearing habit that Regina often made note of but chose not to comment upon.

"I was about to get ready to close up when Snow came in," continued Red, her voice growing closer as she approached the kitchen in which Regina sat. "Said she had something to tell me. She looked all nervous with excitement, too, kinda like a kid with a secret that's just about to burst out. Well, guess what? She's pregnant! Can you believe it? I'm going to be an aunt! When she told me, I almost lost my shi..."

Stopping in the doorway of the kitchen, Red's excitement was cut short by the pensive look on Regina's face. The grin she had been wearing faded only to replaced by a worried furrow of her brow. Seated at the prep table she and Red often ate at when either or both were running late getting home from work and Henry was with his other mother, Regina watched the emotions play over her lover's face.

Red took a hesitant step forward. "What's wrong?"

In response, Regina patted the stool next to her. "Come sit."

At the gentle command, Red set about placing her purse and keys on the kitchen counter before obeying, sitting tentatively upon the cushioned stool. After smoothing down her skirt, she folded her hands in her lap and began nervously chewing at her lip.

"Okay...you're being weird," she said with apprehension after a moment. "Did I do something to upset you?"

"Not at all," Regina replied, scrubbing a hand over her face. She was tired from both a general lack of sleep and having wrestled all day with what she had learned from Rumplestiltskin.

After that uncomfortable but enlightening visit to the Pawn Shop, Regina went in to work to try and get at least partially through her list of tasks to accomplish for the day without her contemplations derailing her. For the most part she managed to keep her attention on task due to the ability to compartmentalize she had developed very early on in life. Being able to push her troubles to the back of her mind came in very handy considering how heavily things were weighing on her. However, by the time 3 pm rolled around, her attention span began to deteriorate to the point that her troublesome thoughts were running amok and the words on the page were blurring together.

With working no longer a valid occupation for her mind, Regina decided to call it quits a little early, but the second she arrived home she realized what a mistake that was. Because Henry was with Emma that night and Red was having to close the Diner due to an outbreak of sickness among the staff, she was going to be alone for the evening. That left her with hours to kill before Red's double shift ended, a daunting task considering how difficult it had become to concentrate.

At first, she tried to occupy her mind by reading, which didn't work as well as she'd hoped. Nothing she picked up piqued her interest enough ease the worrisome feelings in her gut that had been slowly stewing since early that morning. Now that they were threatening to boil over, maintaining focus was nearly impossible. In all, she tried for over an hour to find a book or magazine article that would suffice to engage her mind until repeated failure frustrated her to the point of anger. She gave up on reading after that.

With that option eliminated, Regina decided to try and force herself to get some more paperwork done. To that end, she retired to her home study and pulled out some relevant files from her cabinet to go over. The tedious monotony of reading contracts, proposals, monthly expense reports and budget requests from various departments distracted her for a short while, but the more she read about the trivialities of small town government, the more her thoughts turned to her dreams. With yet another lapse in concentration, Regina grew even more restless.

Knowing that it was hopeless to adequately divert her worries any longer, she decided to try her last resort. Moving back in the living room, she ventured over to the cabinet she kept her photo albums in and pulled out her latest one. After getting comfortable on the couch, Regina laid out the album on her lap and began flipping through it. There was something about reliving various family activities through the visual stimuli of photographs that soothed her when nothing else did. It was as if studying those frozen moments of Red or Henry smiling, laughing, or even horsing around together produced a photographic catharsis which purged her for a while of negative emotions. Such visual mementos of her happiness served as a reminder that no matter how hard life got and no matter how difficult the challenge she faced or the trial she endured, she was a blessed woman.

In Storybrooke, many of her worst days came about not from extraordinary threats on the town but from the actions or words of ordinary people who had never forgiven her for the crimes she committed as Queen. Since the world they now occupied was one governed by laws and not lynch mobs, they utilized the only outlet for their anger they had at their disposal: open criticism of the job she did as Mayor. From signing petitions to have her removed from office to biweekly demonstrations in front of City Hall, the unhappy minority expressed their contempt for Regina with rabid fervor. Nothing much ever came of such activities except for Regina's sordid past being brought back up to the surface yet again. In that way, she supposed their efforts were working.

Some other, more clever detractors of a more substantial influence liked to goad her by submitting funding request or project proposals that were such a colossal waste of time that Regina would be left fuming by the time she was done reading them. They did so knowing there was little she could do in retribution since it was her job as mayor to review and approve such things, no matter how absurd. Every time a hundred page proposal landed on her desk from the zoning or planning committees, Regina would lament the breaking of the Curse and reminisce about the old days when things happened according to her will. Those days were long gone, though, and no matter how much she hated reading such drivel, that was just a mayor's life, particularly for one who had a mile long litany of sins that could be held against them at any time.

Besides vindictiveness, another reason for such abysmal behavior was jealousy. Many of Storybrooke's most vocal haters were not pleased that Regina was happy. Of those, most did not have the love in their lives that she did, so in a way, that in itself was a victory over their petty acts of defiance and lingering doubts about her intentions. However, that did not change the fact that she was bothered by how unwilling some people were to overlook all the good she'd done just so they could remain comfortably ensconced in their old opinions and hurts.

As far as Regina was concerned, the Enchanted Forest was a bygone era, a painful set of memories that were best left undisturbed. That place was not something she deemed worth holding on to, rather it only seemed fit for being forgotten. It was especially sad then to think that there were individuals who preferred to wallow in their memories of what once was until they stagnated or rotted from from the inside out, all due to an unwillingness to move forward with their lives. If it hadn't been like looking she was looking in a mirror from her days as the Evil Queen, Regina would have thought it pathetic.

However, the fact remained there were only a very exclusive group of people who had it better in the Enchanted Forest than in Storybrooke, and in those few, it was only because of their station. Being a monarch or noble of major or minor status in the Enchanted Forest afforded a great deal of advantage over the vast majority of the population. From living conditions to life expectancy and from clothing to luxury goods, the upper class enjoyed a life of privilege that those of more plebeian roots could only dream of. As such, most aristocrats actually believed themselves to be better than the unwashed masses they loved to look down their noses at.

In a turn that quite surprised Regina, out of that elite portion of the population, few seemed hellbent on clinging to the old world. Most, it seemed, preferred the creature comforts of this world to the status advantages of the old one. There were a select few, however, who did not share that opinion and it was those who made it their purpose in life to pester Regina with trivial matters that drove her batty and by generally going out of their way to make her job more difficult. Regina assumed it was because they were miserable, and as such, they felt she should be as well. It was her fault, after all, that they were not in their castles lording their wealth and privilege over the peasantry and feeling superior to all beneath them because of the power of life and death they held in their hands. That kind of uppity caste-based arrogance disgusted her.

As Queen, Regina had been proud and often cruel but never without reason. She tried to rule fairly where possible and considered herself to have done an adequate job seeing as how she was spending nearly all of her time and energy on hunting Snow White. It was more difficult than one might imagine to run a kingdom while madly plotting revenge. But during her reign, no peasant in her kingdom ever starved, taxes were not stifling, and the law was fairly but strictly enforced. Compared to other kingdoms, her subjects had relatively good lives so long as they did not cross her, anger her, or offend her.

Mostly this was because she had not desired her position but had been forced into it. Unlike with her mother, power had never been Regina's life goal, so once she had it she was only interested in using it as a means to an end. The main portion of her energy was poured out toward achieving her main objective in life: to capture Snow White and kill her slowly. As such, wielding power for its own sake was a secondary thought. Among monarchs, there were others of like mind whose focus was not on accruing ever more power, but there were also those for whom the opposite stood true such as King George aka Albert Spencer. In both the Enchanted Forest and Storybrooke alike, it was individuals of his ilk who most made Regina want to tear her hair out and light people on fire. That she refrained from doing so was a testament to her self-control.

Still, sometimes she got overwhelmed by frustration and when she felt that way, few things helped to calm her ruffled feathers. Spending time with Henry and Red was most effective, but in lieu of that, looking through her picture albums proved an adequate substitute which had proven to actually make a noticeable difference in her mood however bleak it was. It was because there were no bad memories in those albums, only happy ones that Regina was always eager to recall.

Due to the fact that she and Red had only been together in this world for a year and three months, most of the albums were focused on Henry. Now, Regina had never been a photo-happy parent like some in this world who seemed intent on recording every waking moment of their child's life. To Regina that was both excessive and absurd. While she couldn't condemn anyone for photographing an important moment in their child's life, there was a limit to reason that she just wouldn't cross. Yet as Henry grew up, she made sure to take enough pictures of him to chronicle his young life, and there were enough of those to fill several books such as his baby, toddler, and adolescent ones. Other than that, she was frugal with her photography.

Red, on the other hand, was a different story. When she was still Ruby, not only did Regina discover that she had a secret hobby taking pictures but to Regina's pleasant surprise she was actually quite good at it. Ruby's nature photos of the forests surrounding Storybrooke were some of the most gorgeous Regina had ever seen. Once their relationship started getting serious beyond the bedroom, Ruby's subject matter shifted somewhat to the personal and all too soon, she was producing an album of pictures with Regina and Henry as the main attractions. When she showed it to them not long before the Curse broke, the reviews were universally glowing, and while Regina had been flattered beyond belief and extremely impressed, it was Henry who was most intrigued. With big hopeful eyes, he made a request that Ruby take him out on one of her photography trips into the forest and to Regina's delight Ruby agreed.

In the handful of times Henry accompanied Red on one of her ventures since the Curse ended (she still went on them even when walking with a cane, the stubborn woman), the passion she displayed for the art began to rub off on Henry. It initially amused Regina because her son seemed to be taking up things that Ruby and/or Red enjoyed, almost as if he had developed some kind of hero worship of her, which Regina was more than okay with. But then for Henry's 11th birthday, Red presented him with an ultra modern and relatively expensive camera that she had crossed the now-safe border to buy. The gift fully ignited the spark of interest she had already lit from a smoldering flame into a burning blaze.

Fancying himself a budding photographer even at his tender age, Henry then went about taking pictures of anything and everything that caught his eye. The framing and timing of the images he took proved he had an eye for detail and a natural ability to recognize moments worth capturing and preserving, moments that told a story beyond the surface. Were it not for the fact Red concurred, Regina might have been accused of bias when asserting that her son had talent. Perhaps, she sometimes thought when she caught Henry photographing something in town, her son had found his calling.

Being that Henry had already proven to be a sneaky boy, Regina should not have been surprised that he would use those skills to take a series of surreptitious photographs that he secretly composed into an album for Mother's Day. Since they were still rebuilding their relationship, still finding common ground on which to approach one another, Regina hadn't expected such an intimately personal gift from Henry. So needless to say, she'd been so touched by the thoughtfulness of the gift that she was moved to tears. That album became Regina's most cherished.

All of the photos inside that album featured Regina in some way or another, but many also featured her together with Red, Henry having caught them together in moments of happiness where they were smiling or laughing at one another or exchanging chaste but sweet kisses. Of the pictures Henry included in the album, Regina had many favorites, so it was hard for her to pinpoint which she preferred above the rest. One of them was a gorgeous shot of her and Red walking hand in hand down the pathway from her front door to the entry gate; the sun was hanging low in the sky, casting an orange glow about the scene and as they walked, she and Red were gazing at one another in a way that openly displayed how much love there was between them.

But even though she loved that picture, there was one she treasured above it because of the story it told. It was one in which she was practicing a speech in front of her mirror and had been taken as it was nearing election time in Storybrooke. Due to the fact that it was the first free election after everyone's memories were restored, there had been a legitimate chance she might actually lose after having run unopposed for 28 years, so Regina had taken the race very seriously. Speeches were scheduled, posters and flyers were made and distributed, spots were recorded to air over the radio, and she even sat for several candid interviews with Sydney.

Through the entirety of the busy campaign, Red was a constant at Regina's side, cane in hand with a smile on her face while tirelessly championing the incumbent Mayor's merits among the townsfolk in a way that Regina couldn't. As one of them, Red had a position of influence and respect that she was not shy about using. One of her favorite tactics was the same she'd used on Emma to such great effect, raising the fact that she had grown up in poverty and knew what it was like to struggle, so she could sympathize with how they felt. But, she would then declare in bringing her point to bear, she did not succumb to the temptation to be clouded by anger or vindictiveness. Instead, she chose to embrace the new opportunities of this world, giving examples of how life here had benefited her and pointing much of the credit to Regina. Inevitably, Red argued, the good Regina had done in creating Storybrooke, serving it faithfully for 28 years, and defending it at the risk of her own life in the months since the curse broke outweighed the bad of her having cast the curse in the first place.

It honestly amazed Regina at how passionate a defender Red was and that by some miracle she was the beneficiary. Somehow, despite being warped by the Curse, Red had been able to recognize the good Regina had done in Storybrooke without it being stained by the evil she had practiced in the Enchanted Forest or by the fact she'd cursed an entire realm into another world because a ten year old girl couldn't keep a secret. In a way that no other could, Red was able to recognize where most weren't that the Evil Queen was not really who she was, merely who she became out of necessity in order to survive. That understanding was what Red tried to impart to the people of Storybrooke to varying degrees of success.

For most of 3 weeks leading up to the election, however, Red often lamented that she felt she failed and that it seemed like people were going to hold the Curse against Regina forever. Taking away her position was just part of the punishment they felt she had earned but didn't receive because circumstances intervened on her behalf. If that had indeed been the case, it would have admittedly been far less than she deserved.

But lo and behold, come election day, Regina won in a landslide against her sole competitor, Albert Spencer, who had campaigned not on his own record but on Regina's past. To be frank, it should have worked, which is why to this day (and though Red would deny it), Regina believed she would not have won without her partner's heroic efforts on her behalf. It was yet another debt of gratitude she owed to the woman who had single-handedly transformed her life so much for the better.

In any case, on the night that particular photo was taken, Regina was practicing for an upcoming debate. Seeing as it was the last and most important one, she'd been stressing about her preparation, so she'd drafted Red to help her get ready. She had thought up a bunch of possible questions, so she wrote them on a cue card and gave them to Red so she could toss them out at random for Regina to answer. After that, Regina spent some time reading her introductory speech to Red and then again to herself in the mirror just to make sure her posture was perfect and her enunciation was just so.

Judging by the angle of the picture, Henry must have sneaked into the doorway to snap it, catching her reflection in her freestanding mirror at a moment when she was gesturing forward, her eyes passionately expressive and lips parted in speech, looking every inch the Mayor despite her blue silk pajamas, lack of make-up, and black-rimmed reading glasses. But it wasn't her flawless form of delivery that made the image special to Regina. Rather, it was the look on Red's face from where she sat perched cross-legged on the edge of the bed, so entranced and captivated she appeared almost bewitched whilst hanging onto every word Regina uttered. Normally, Red did not stare in such an obvious way since she knew it made Regina uncomfortable, but because Regina's attention had been focused elsewhere, her face was unfiltered.

Richly and vividly painted with an array of intense emotions, there was something momentous in Red's equally awed and lovestruck expression that made Regina's stomach flip whenever she saw it. Having made many speeches in her life, most of them as Queen, she was used to looks of fear, awe, or slavish devotion being directed her way, but the reverential adoration Red was wearing in the picture had been a new one. It was almost as if in that moment, Red was a woman who had been kept in darkness all her life and was just seeing the sun for the very first time and was basking in the warm glow of its life-giving rays.

Being able to see such emotion from Red in the picture made Regina aware of something she'd not really considered in a long time. The power to utterly break Red, to crush her heart and soul, to pulverize her dreams of the future into dust rested solely in her hands. Such power, she knew from experience, was one that no person should be permitted to hold over another. In such cases, disaster was all too often the result.

But even though it was scary to recognize how much leverage she possessed over Red, it was wonderful at the same time. Red had such trust in her that she was willing to invest the entirety of her being into their relationship, holding nothing back while giving of herself liberally and asking for so little in return, all because she believed in Regina. That Red was so free with her trust humbled Regina so that she never forgot how precious it was. That is why she chose that exact picture to look at while sorting through her feelings about her dreams. Being able to see how unwavering Red's love was, how pure and unrestrained, made contemplating where their relationship was going somewhat more acceptable.

In the first dream...vision Regina had, Red had proposed to her, and Regina was not so blind as to be aware that Red wanted that in reality. Still, while getting married to Red was a concession she had thought herself willing to make at first, facing the very real possibility it might actually happen was an altogether different experience. Staring down that dreaded rabbit hole had brought up all kinds of bad memories, particularly of her wedding night when she'd given no choice but to give herself away to a man she did not love in a marriage she did not want while still grieving the love she had laid to rest less than a month before.

For a long time after her wedding night, sex was tainted for Regina. It became a duty, something she did with her body while her mind was shuttered off. Disconnecting from reality was the only way she could endure the pain and shame without losing her mind. Not once had she ever been a willing participant with Leopold but she had lacked the power to refuse. As a result of that sustained abuse, marriage became sullied in her view, an ugly tradition that she came to associate with unending torment.

While Regina loved Red and was willing to consider marrying someday, she was not yet ready. The scars on her heart were not healed enough that she could give that much of herself away without ruining what should be the happiest day of their lives. As such, it was with some measure of dread that she'd realized she was going to have to talk to Red about it and just hope that she was as patient and understanding in this as she was with all of Regina's other issues.

And then there was the second and third dreams, which seemed to be some kind of warning or reminder to Regina that life was precious and fleeting, that she was not guaranteed a forever with Red, no matter how much she might want it. Those two warred with the revelations of the first. On one hand, Regina recognized she was not ready for marriage, but on the other hand, some cosmic force was trying to warn her that there might come a day when she'd waited too long. Her alternate self had not seemed to be plagued by the same hang-ups as she was in this reality and even she had not acted fast enough. Because of that, the other Regina had been left with crushing regrets that precipitated a rapid degeneration of her mind of which the disaster in her dream at the mausoleum was a direct result.

All of this was weighing on Regina's conscience during the course of her time alone. She didn't know what to do or what to say. All she knew was that she loved Red, loved her more than life itself, yet she didn't know if that was enough. But it had to be. The alternative – losing Red – was unfathomable.

"What's going on, Regina?" Red's concerned voice cut through the thick silence.

Taking a steadying breath, Regina replied, "I went to see Rumple as you suggested."

Red's brow rose dramatically. "You did? That's surprising but I'm glad you did. What did he have to say?"

After explaining Rumple's theory to Red in a rudimentary way, Regina added, "And I have to admit, I believe his theory is plausible if not fact."

Red hummed, her head tilting over as she contemplated what Regina had told her. After a few seconds of silent thought, she then nodded. "I can see it. I mean, I wouldn't have thought there were other worlds besides our own, let alone ones without magic, yet I now know that there are many worlds beyond the two. So why not alternate universes?"

"Precisely," Regina agreed. "Which lead me to question why I was seeing what I did in my dreams. Rumple suggested that they were most likely triggered because of a dilemma I'm wrestling with. He didn't really go into detail about the mechanics of what was happening but I got the feeling that he believed them to be messages."

Red frowned. "From?"

Shrugging, Regina sighed. "I don't know. Fate? The universe? My own subconscious? All I know is that if what he says is true, the dreams were all linked in meaning and working together to tell me something."

"And did you figure that something out?"

"I did," Regina replied, averting her eyes briefly from Red's intense gaze. "They were trying to tell me that I can't let the past dictate my future anymore, that life is precious and love even more so. I understand what my dreams are telling me but I'm not sure I'm ready to listen."

"Why?" Red asked, her brow furrowing in confusion. "It's obvious that you've accepted Gold's explanation of your dreams as the truth, so why fight against...whatever it is that's been communicating with you. If it's that important, seems simple to me that you should listen."

"But it's not simple, Red," Regina countered tersely, running a nervous hand through her hair, "not when it involves marriage!" Eyes widening, Regina clapped a hand over her mouth. She hadn't meant to blurt that out.

Leaning back on her stool as if thunderstruck, Red gaped at Regina and clutched at the neckline of her uniform. "Marriage? Like," she pointed between them with her other hand, "us?"

"Yes," Regina breathed, searching Red's green eyes for any sign that her deductions were wrong. She found none. There was no offense, disgust, or hesitation in her eyes that pointed to Red being disinclined to the idea in any way. Rather, she appeared a bit afraid, as if her long-held secret desire was finally being revealed and she was terrified that Regina would overreact. Red's next words solidified that assessment as accurate.

"And?" she asked after gnawing on her bottom lip with worry. "How do you feel about that?"

"Do you want my honest answer to that?" Regina responded delicately. In the heat of the moment, her resolve to have this discussion was waning, so she used the opportunity to give Red an out with which to veer the discussion away from its current course and save them both a little bit of heartache. She should have known better.

"I always want you to be honest with me, Regina," Red said with a clear voice, though her face betrayed that she was bracing for rejection already.

The doubt Red was displaying stung Regina almost enough that she was willing to lie to prevent her from being hurt, and she would have but for her having learned the hard way that her partner did not appreciate dishonesty for the sake of sparing her feelings. Red would rather be told a truth that crushed her than a well-intentioned lie because, as she'd told Regina before, lies always wind up blowing up in a way that compounds pain. She was right.

Once during the campaign, Red had asked Regina why some of the people who worked at city hall stared at her whenever she visited Regina at work, with particular curiosity about Albert Spencer's derisive leers. Regina had lied, not having the heart to tell Red that Spencer had spread vicious rumors around city hall that as Ruby, she was in Regina's 'employ'. It was a pretentious way of saying that Ruby was an escort Regina kept on retainer. When Regina discovered the infuriating rumor, she nearly had a meltdown.

Deciding to ferret out the source, she worked her way diligently through many employees, questioning them subtly as to where they had heard the rumor. After learning it was Spencer, she confronted him personally, warning him that if he spread anymore such slander she would destroy him and thoroughly enjoy every moment of doing so. Though he seemed to be more amused by her threats more than frightened by them, Spencer backed down. Thinking the matter resolved, Regina forgot about it and moved on.

That was until one afternoon close to the election. It was nearly time for Regina to quit for the day when Red had burst into her office in tears, gripping her cane so tightly that the metal knob on top creaked in protest. Her face glowed with indignant, mortified rage.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she'd demanded, leaning over Regina's desk, her chin trembling due to anger and grief. "I asked you what they were saying and you said, 'nothing'! How could you not tell me?"

Temporarily stupefied, Regina had stuttered, "I...wha...w-what are you talking about, sweetheart?"

"Don't you dare sweetheart me, Regina!" Red had shouted, loud enough that Regina winced, sure her secretary could hear along with half the other workers on her floor.

Eyes wide at the outburst, Regina lifted her hands toward her lover in a mollifying gesture. "Red, calm down. What's got you so upset?"

Glaring a hole through Regina's head, Red replied, "I was talking to Ashley before I walked in and Drizella waltzed by. After her typical sneering at her step-sister, she noticed me standing there. Wanna know what she said?" It was clear to Regina that Red was so wound up over this that it was best not to respond for fear of setting her off even more. So she didn't. "She said: 'can I ask you a question? Does she still pay you?'"

At that, the metaphorical light bulb lit up and Regina wilted into her plush leather chair, wishing for all the world that the floor would open up and swallow her whole. "Red..." she started to explain but was unable to due to Red plowing forward with a full head of steam.

"I asked her what the hell she meant by that. Care to guess?" Opening her mouth to respond to what was clearly a rhetorical question, Regina was once again preempted by Red, this time with harsh words that had her reeling backward as if being struck. "Of course not! You don't have to guess. You already know! Did you know that yesterday I went to visit to Spencer by myself? I thought I could talk some sense into him, get him to stop all the crap he's been spewing about you."

"Oh God, Red, I didn't..."

"No! I don't want to hear it!" she shouted, her face a blotchy mess of embarrassed rage. "I made a fool of myself, Regina! I kept wondering why that taunting smirk never left his face but now I know. He thinks I'm your whore!" After that, it was like Red's anger bubble was burst and she drained of color right before Regina's eyes. With her face crumbled in misery, she lamented, "Does everyone think that? Is that what I've been reduced to in people's eyes now? I was already the town slut but now I'm the mayor's paid piece of ass!" Spent, Red collapsed into the chair in front of Regina's desk, dropped her head into her hands and cried.

It took a lot of apologies for Regina to work her way out that very bitter and lonely doghouse, along with offerings of flowers, chocolates, breakfast in bed, and general grovelling in a way she had never been reduced to before. But it had been necessary. Half of what kept her from telling Red the truth when she'd had the opportunity to do so was her pride. Pride was always Regina's weakness, but with Red so miserable and it being all her fault, she had not been prepared to let it, however strong a force it was, prevent her from making things right. If begging and pleading on her hands and knees had been what was required, she was prepared to do that.

But in keeping with Red's compassionate nature, Regina had been forgiven after only a few days of the cold shoulder. Still, the lesson stuck. After that, she'd pretty much told Red the truth even when it was painful, and this truth was probably going to be a very painful one for Red to hear, perhaps even more so than it would be for Regina to tell.

Taking a deep breath, she reached out for her partner's hand, taking it gently between hers. "First, I need you to know that I love you so much," she began, her face earnest and open, "but I'm not ready for that, not right now and maybe not ever. I still..."

"Hey, I get it," Red interjected, understanding flooding her features. The worry that she had been wearing just a second ago was gone, which somewhat confused Regina. Red then smiled gently. "You don't have to explain, babe. I know why you feel that way, so I want _you_ to know that I'm happy with the way things are right now. If we never get married that's okay because I'm yours and you're mine. I don't need a ring or a piece of paper to tell me that. You're the love of my life, Regina. As long as I get to be with you, nothing else matters."

Choking back tears, Regina turned away. The love in Red's eyes was just too much to bear as awful as she felt. As always, she was the one holding Red back from her dreams. In the Enchanted Forest, Regina had always been aware of the wedge she'd driven between Red and Snow, and though that gave her immense satisfaction at first, the longer things went, the more she saw how it was tearing Red apart. It was no secret to Regina that Red wanted to help reconcile her best friend to the woman she loved and it was only her twisted, relentless vendetta that prevented that from being possible.

Sometimes in those days, when sleeping, Red would mumble incoherent sentences. Often, Regina had no idea what was going on in her obviously vivid dreams, but there was one time she distinctly recalled understanding what Red had said. It was seared into her brain because it had begun with the mention of her mortal nemesis, but also she remembered because of the radiantly happy expression that came across Red's sleeping features upon speaking those handful of words.

"Snow, 'Gina," she'd mumbled, "s'glad. Love you both. M'so happy."

Regina's stomach had plummeted to her feet. She hadn't liked the feeling of knowing how happy it would make Red if she were to stop her pursuit of Snow White. It conflicted her so much that she could not rid herself of the discomfort for days afterward. Even the prospect of torturing traitors and burning down villages did not help to perk her up. In contemplating why, Regina found that she had developed a deep-seated desired for Red to be happy, yet she also realized that the price for that to happen was one she was unwilling to pay. At the time, her dreams of revenge were more important to her than Red's dreams of happiness, and much to her present disgrace, it seemed not much had changed on that front despite her belief that it had.

Looking back at Red and miserably torn, she finally responded with a declaration that she felt on the tip of her tongue far too often. "I don't deserve you."

It physically hurt Regina to say those words because she wanted so much for them not be true. But no matter how much she wished for it not to be so, they were. She didn't deserve Red, never had and never would, especially when she kept on putting herself first as per usual. If she hadn't needed Red so much, Regina would have ended the relationship long ago, but as was the case since nearly the first kiss they shared, her need outweighed any sense of decency. Regina was, as always, a selfish woman.

"Love is not about deserving," was Red's tender reply. "If it was, none of us would be happy, me included. Love doesn't need an explanation or a qualification. It just is. So, it doesn't really matter if you deserve me or if I deserve you. I love you and you love me. If that's true..."

"It is," Regina supplied, lifting her hands to cup Red's face.

"Well, then," Red smiled, "Mr. Lennon and Mr. McCartney were right. Love is all we need."

Leaning in, Regina kissed her incredible lover, a tender joining of lips not rushed or excited by passion, but reassuring and affirming, an exchange of unspoken devotion that left her breathless. After parting several seconds later, Regina returned one hand to her lap while she stroked the other upward over Red's ear and through the silky strands of hair at her temple.

Staring adoringly at her better half, Regina felt compelled to give her a sliver of hope because after Red's gentle acceptance, she felt it, too. "I love you," she then said. "And this is not a no, just a not yet. One day, we'll revisit this conversation, and perhaps then my answer will be different."

Her gambit worked. Red's face filled with hopeful wonder. "Really? 'Cause you know I meant what I said. We don't have to ever talk about this again."

"I know," Regina smiled, "and I love you for your unconditional understanding, but this is not just for you. It's for me, too. My dreams were trying to tell me something and you're right, I should listen."

Leaning back in for another kiss, Red whispered, "Far be it from me to argue with that."

No more words were needed. And so much later that night, lying in bed with Red asleep in her arms, Regina thought back to that terrible day one year ago, the source of her numerous nightmares. The remembrance of Red lying there on her front porch, a puddle of blood haloing all around her with sightless green eyes staring up into the nether, was one that haunted her beyond her dreams. She would never forget how it felt when she had believed Red to be dead or how hopeless she became when considering she had lost everything that mattered to her in one day, or how violent she became when thoughts of vengeance filled her mind once more, her old self pleading with her to let the Evil Queen back out to play. And despite the fact that she hadn't lost Red and she hadn't regressed, it was a close call – too close for comfort – that scared her so much she overreacted.

In the days after Red was stabbed, every time that picture entered her mind, she felt a sense of impending doom that made her spine tingle and her stomach churn until she was battling nausea. The feeling was so unpleasantly persistent that she'd actually prepared a forgetting potion to erase the memory. After several days of indecisive procrastination, she decided to finally take it late at night when Red was sleeping so that there would be no chance of being interrupted. That night as she stood in front of her bathroom mirror, potion in hand and poised at her lips, she had been ready to follow through and would have were it not for a cry of distress from the bedroom. Leaving the potion behind, Regina raced to the bed to comfort Red, who had awakened, trembling and drenched with sweat, from the throes of a terrible nightmare. By the time Regina got her partner settled down and back to sleep, she had reconsidered her hasty decision.

The next day, she sat down and actually thought things through more carefully. In doing so, she came to the conclusion that she didn't want to forget. Remembering what she had almost lost made her more appreciative of those she loved and more determined to succeed in those relationships where she'd failed in the past. While certainly horrible, those memories also made her realize that there was someone in this world who loved her enough to willingly die for her, something Regina never had before. Worried that she might lose those feelings if she were forget, she vowed to remember not with sorrow but with hope, and to never again take Red or Henry for granted. After avoiding the near disaster of taking the potion, it became her purpose to strive toward being a better person, a better Mayor, friend, mother, lover, and companion.

Although she was not yet where she wanted to be, Regina was proud to say that she was getting there, and all because of the people that mattered most: Henry, her beloved son, and Red, her True Love. One day at a time, she was becoming that hopeful and loving young girl once again, the one she thought lost to her forever. And though it was unlikely she would ever fully recover her former innocence (after all, how could she? too much had happened for such to be possible), Regina had learned that life had a funny habit of coming full circle in ways that defied the odds and expectations of even the most wise of sages. It was the way of the universe to show humanity that at best they are a vapor in the wind or grass that withers and fades, here today and gone tomorrow.

No one, Regina had learned, was truly in charge of their own destiny, a revelation which she had come to appreciate only recently. If her life with Red had taught her anything it was that life was a journey that was not always meant to be steered and that sometimes there was nothing a person could do but to hold on, to ride the wave out instead of fighting senselessly against it. Rather than being something scary, this wonderful journey she was embarking on with Henry and Red was one so fulfilling that she was more than willing to just sit back and enjoy it, or at least try to. And who knows, maybe if she was lucky, one day she would get to do it all over again.


	14. Full Circle

**Standard Disclaimer** : The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately and I will correct them.

 **Chapter 14** – Full Circle

Red frowned as she rifled through her clothing drawers, searching for her necklace with the crescent moon pendant she had hidden away earlier that month. Dressed only in a white silk slip with her hair already perfectly styled, she was trying valiantly to keep calm but with little success. It just had to be today of all days – the second most important of her life – for her to lose her most beloved worldly possession. As it just so happened, today was Red's wedding day.

Feeling a sense of familiarity at the situation wash over her, she clenched her eyes shut and strained to think of where else the necklace might be. She could very distinctly recall the day she'd ferreted the necklace away; it was a Monday afternoon some weeks before in which a certain little girl named Clementine with a penchant for confiscating jewelry was spending the afternoon with her godparents, Snow and David. Having Clementine out of the house afforded the perfect opportunity for Red to hide her priceless necklace, which just so happened to be the girl's favorite to 'borrow' when playing a certain game. In order to be triply sure it could not be located by Clementine for the next several weeks, Red carefully packed the necklace up in a small nondescript box, stuffed that into a black jewelry pouch, and then tucked said pouch away inside a pair of her lacy red stockings. It was a convoluted solution to be sure, but Clementine was a very clever girl, which Red ought to know since she was her mother.

Speaking of the game Clementine loved to play, Regina – Clementine's 'Mommy' – did not at all approve of it. Dressing up in an all black ensemble replete with leather boots and a fake hook made of a mangled metal coat hanger, Clementine would sail the Seven Seas of 108 Mifflin Street in her cardboard Jolly Roger whilst in search of 'booty' (mainly in the form of her Mama's vast assortment of necklaces) just like her uncle Killian had taught her. Not only did Regina loathe her daughter's enormous affection for 'Captain Guyliner', but she also thought it wildly inappropriate for a five year old girl to both be exposed to so unsavory a trade as pirating was and to be loosely using a term that can be grossly misconstrued as vulgar. Red on the other hand thought Clementine's game was hilarious, though that amusement was always tempered by an icy glare from Regina that made her want to curl up in a corner somewhere and whimper pitifully with her tail tucked tightly between her legs.

But even though the game was innocent and quite frankly adorable, that didn't mean Red didn't get tired of her necklaces going missing as casualties of her daughter's vivid imagination. Red loved her necklaces, always had; in fact, her fondness of that particular fashion accessory was the one thing that stuck from her time as Ruby – well, that and her hats, Red loved her hats too. In the years since the Curse broke, she had added all sorts of necklaces to her collection, from a platinum piece with a braided chain and an apple pendant to various gold, white gold, and stainless steel pieces with pendants depicting a wide range of things, such as a rearing horse, a howling wolf, a picnic basket, and even one whose charm was an apple tree expertly crafted out of wire and stained glass.

While Red loved all of her necklaces, none of them were as precious to her as the one Regina had gifted to her, and as such, she had decided to not take any chances of Clementine getting her greedy little hands on it. The hope had been that the astute little girl would not notice there was a key piece of jewelry missing from the box she often raided for her 'booty' and would go on about her playtime without bothering to put forth any further effort into searching for it. If Red had learned anything from both being around Henry when he was younger and from her own experience raising Clementine, it was that kids tended to be impulsive to the point that the prospect of exhaustive effort to find something was an immediate discouragement. She had been relying on that to be true. However, it was clear now that she had underestimated her daughter and that she should not have been so dismissive of either the child's intelligence or determination.

But just to be sure, Red proceeded to diligently search through every other pair of stockings and pantyhose she owned at least twice in the proceeding minutes. When continued fruitless searches yielded no results, panic started to set in, so she expanded her search to other clothing drawers. As she tore consecutively through those containing her socks, underwear, and sleeping shirts without success, she was left with little alternative as to where the blame lay. It seemed that Clementine, even after several previous warnings, had indeed been rifling through her mother's sexy drawer again, and if that was proven the case as Red expected it would be, she was going to have to sit her mischievous daughter down for a very serious talk later.

However, at the moment she was not so concerned about interrogating Clementine, if only for the reason that she was rushed for time. She needed to find that necklace and soon. With only an hour to spare before the ceremony started, time was of the essence and her necklace was the one thing she couldn't bear to get married without since it was the first genuine gift Regina ever gave her with no strings attached to it. Also, there was the not-so-insignificant fact that Regina had put a great amount of thought, time, and effort into crafting it, and seeing as that was the case, the necklace was far from being just another piece of jewelry to Red. As weird as it may seem it had transcended such distinctions, having become a piece of her history that was even more irreplaceable than her famous red cloak. So aside from an act of God or some unforeseen catastrophe, the only thing that could possibly sully her joy at finally marrying the love of her life was if she were forced to so without that meaningful symbol of her life with Regina hanging around her neck and resting over her heart where it belonged.

"Dammit, Clemmy!" Red shouted angrily to the empty room, fighting against tears as she sank to the bed in despair. She wasn't really angry at her daughter so much as she was disappointed with herself. If she'd used her brain like she should have, perhaps she might have come up with a more sensible solution such as entrusting the necklace to Snow or Emma for safekeeping. But she had thought to solve the problem herself, so that left no one else to blame, really. It was her own stupidity that landed her in this situation.

"Looking for this?" A very familiar voice called out from the doorway of her chambers a few moments later.

In a powerful flash of déjà vu, Red's eyes snapped up to find Snow hovering in her doorway, a teasing smile plastered across her face.

Red stopped breathing out of reflex. Despite the other woman's short stature and bubbly demeanor, she seemed in that moment to cut a very imposing figure, a vision of beauty in a swirling ruby red dress. As a rather reserved person by nature, Snow tended to shy away from such bold colors but Red knew it was for her sake that Snow had assented to wear the bold colors she'd chosen for her Matron of Honor's dress.

" _You're family_ , _Red,_ " Snow had told her at the fitting. " _I'd wear a burlap sack to your wedding if that made you happy._ "

That wouldn't have made Red happy at all, but the sweetness of the offer did make her feel like squeezing Snow until she popped, an impulse Red was only barely able to suppress. But however modest Snow might be in her everyday life, Red had to admit that she was totally rocking the look and ought to do it more. With her pixie cut parted just to the right, makeup artfully applied, and lips painted a satin red, it was almost like the demure Mary Margaret had been banished for good right along with the prim and proper Snow White. What was left behind was a smoking hot paradox of a person who was both her former and latter selves yet neither all at the same time, a state of being not at all unique to the former bandit princess.

Even for Red it was strange dealing with the lingering effects of the Curse being broken. Having two sets of memories in one brain was complicated and uncomfortable on the best of days, but on the bad ones where her dichotomous memories along with her unsettled wolf were clattering about her head like gemstones in a rock tumbler, she often suffered from debilitating headaches that came out nowhere. Because Red was stubborn as a mule, she never let anyone see her pain, working through it like a champ without complaint. But even so, the blistering pain could get so severe she would often stumble home from work just in time to vomit. Afterward, Regina would always see her to bed while apologizing profusely for her role in the sickness, aware as she was of what was causing the headaches. The thing was, Red did not blame Regina, just as she did not blame Regina for any of the other crappy things that had happened to her.

"Life just sucks sometimes," she often said to ease her girlfriend's conscience when such migraines were met by an effusion of unnecessary guilt. "And this is one of those times. Nothing to be sorry about."

Most of the time Regina held onto her remorse but on the occasion the offerings of compassion were accepted, some of that guilt she wore around her shoulders and which so often clouded her eyes was dispelled, reminding Red of why she chose to forgive rather than to hold on to grudges. Life was too short to spend blaming someone else for what she was going through, even though that person might well bear responsibility. Almost dying tended to put such things in perspective. Red had not been a vindictive or begrudging person before nearly bleeding to death on Regina's front porch, but that incident had certainly made her more appreciative of the good things in her life, and other than Clementine, Regina was the best of those things. So while the torment of having two sets of memories in one brain could be incapacitating, it was just something that Red had learned to live with over time.

Not everyone suffered such physical manifestations of their internal dilemmas, as for some it was much easier to cope with the influx of memories than it had been for Red. Those fortunate individuals seemed to be those which had a clear preference between the two opposing lives, enabling them to easily discard one set as unimportant, a blip in the radar not worth their time. The life they did not want to remember they willingly chose to ignore in favor of the one that was, to them, the better of them. It came as no small surprise to Red that nearly all of those people chose to be identified as their cursed selves. Just as she'd told Henry, Emma, and Regina that fateful day the Curse was broken, Storybrooke was not a bad thing at all and it was nice to have people who agreed with her.

But to others things were not so cut and dried, as with her own case. People with cherished memories from both lives had a more difficult time adapting to the clashing personalities and recollections battling inside their brains. Most of Red's friends were in this camp, as was Snow, who had many memories she clung to from both lives. From the Enchanted Forest, for instance, Snow relished the memories of her parents, of falling in love with Charming, and of her time on the run with Red as two young girls against the world having the time of their lives. Yet, she also held dear certain memories from Storybrooke, notable among them the children she'd invested 28 years into teaching and above all, the time she'd spent getting to know Emma before she was awakened to the realization that her new best friend was really her daughter.

But like with most everyone else battling between dual personalities, with time the warring nature of the conflicting personas began to fade into the background in order for a new person to emerge. Snow was a prime example of this for the woman standing before Red now was not the same daring bandit she had adventured with for so many years, nor was she the diffident pushover she'd once been under the Dark Curse. In learning to live with two sets of lives, Snow had taken the best of each and used the differences to mold herself into someone better: a healthy, thriving mix of who she used to be, who she was presently, and who she was becoming. In doing so, Snow had become a person who Red was more proud than ever to call a friend.

Though in many ways Emma had sort of risen to her mother's equal in esteem, Red had never felt as kindred with Snow as she did right then. After going through so much together, Snow was still a faithful companion that she could not imagine living without. It had been Snow, after all, who was the first to embrace Red for who she really was, and who had stood by her during many of her lowest moments such as when she was grieving her mother's death. Were it not for Snow's patient friendship, Red was not sure she would have made it through those trying weeks that followed that particularly heartrending tragedy.

For days, all Red had wanted to do was cry or sleep or stare listlessly into nothing while awake, but Snow simply refused to let her suffer alone. In an act of selflessness Red would never forget, one night Snow crawled up beside Red in their little shanty, sliding beneath the worn blankets they had procured from a friendly farmer and burrowing into her side. As she rested her head over Red's heart she began to bare the pain of her own similar loss, speaking at length and with much sadness about her own mother and of how she had possessed the means to save her but had chosen not to because it would mean trading one life for another.

The sharing of such sensitive information startled Red so much that she hadn't dared speak. The few times previously she had inquired about Snow's mother, she was met with a stony silence that told her she'd overstepped her bounds, followed by a curt, "I'd rather not talk about it," and a change of subject that Red was never brave enough to comment on. She'd learned quickly that subject was one best left undisturbed. Yet with Red in the throes of mourning, Snow cast off all reservations that had once restrained her from opening up, freely baring her old wounds just so her friend would not feel so alone.

With heavy emotion inflected in her voice, Snow then began to describe how it felt to hold her mother's hand while she died, to feel the life literally drain out of the person she loved most in the whole world knowing it was her fault. Her mother, Snow had said, was the one who taught her everything she knew about life and was responsible for whatever goodness there was in her heart, and yet she had died without understanding how much she was loved or how cherished and needed she was. That her mother died the way she did, Snow then confessed, made it seem as if all of her hopes and dreams for the future died along with her, only to be sealed up in an iron coffin and then buried in the cold, pitiless earth.

Over time, Red came to understand that carrying such a cumbersome amount of guilt over her part in her mother's death was why Snow loved the way she did. Since she felt so keenly that she had failed the person she loved most, she was hellbent on never allowing another person she cared for to die without having given them every bit of her heart she had to offer and without spending every ounce of her effort on them. More than anything else, it was Snow's practice of an all or nothing approach to love that inspired Red to love someone as, for lack of a better term, unlovable as Regina had once been.

And yet it wasn't just romantic love that Red learned from Snow but the platonic variety as well. That Snow loved her deeply was never in doubt, for it was evident in so many ways both past and present. Back in the Enchanted Forest, Snow had accepted her and supported her when no one else would, going so far as to risk her life for Red on numerous occasions. Snow's was a true friendship, one that was sure enough to withstand the test of time, and because of that, even post-Dark Curse, her friendship had not changed. Red was thankful every day for the grace of the dainty yet lionhearted woman's presence in her life because Snow was a source of comfort and strength from which she could draw during the many hardships in life that came her way both personally and externally.

In Storybrooke, which seemed to be a nexus of monumental activity, things were never at peace for long before some threat emerged, and whenever that happened, Snow White, the diminutive woman with a giant personality, could always be counted on to rise to the occasion. Never one content to bark orders from the sidelines or skulk from her responsibilities, Snow was never far from the thick of things for she understood that she was not the type of person who could demand or command loyalty and obedience by sheer force of personality – such as Regina was. Rather, Snow was of the type who lead by her courageous actions. Always first into battle, quick to put herself in harm's way before asking such of anyone else, Snow drew people to her in such a way that they gave her their undying loyalty and would follow her into the very pits of Hell if she were to ask it of them. And even if no one else felt that way, Red certainly did.

Yet it wasn't just in moments of crisis that Snow shined the brightest, for she was always there with an ear to listen with or a shoulder to cry on whenever Red was reeling from some existential crisis or from the earth tilting aftereffects of a particularly bad fight with Regina. Not that fights with Regina were frequent, it was just when they did happen they were explosive and loud and angry encounters that were too often typified by slamming doors and screaming curses or insults that invariably left one of them wallowing in miserable guilt as the other limped off the emotional battlefield with a shredded ego and eviscerated feelings. And while they always had enough sense not to fight around the kids, that small comfort never helped Red cope after Regina had said something that cut her to the bone or vice-versa. Whenever one of those rare knock down and drag outs happened, Red invariably ran to Snow, for with her best friend, her sister, there was never any judgment or unsolicited advice, just the steady, calming presence of a woman whose capacity for compassion surpassed any other on earth.

Though Snow was not without her faults, if there was ever a woman born to be a mother, a wife, and a friend, it was in Red's opinion, her. So when it came time for Red to choose who would stand beside her at her wedding, there was really no choice to be made at all. Granny would be giving her away but it would be Snow who was at her side while she took her vows and that was just the way it was meant to be.

Swallowing thickly at her thoughts, when Red caught a glint coming from Snow's hands, she cut her eyes to see what it was. There, dangling from outstretched fingertips was her precious ametite necklace. With the golden chain glinting in the sunlight, the stone seemed to pulsate slowly as if it had come alive all of the sudden and was glowing with an almost wispy aura of crimson light. Perhaps in a way, Red mused, it had come to life. When Regina cast the wards into the stone, she linked them to the energy that made Red magical, and since this was the day Red had been dreaming of since she was a little girl, her entire body was thrumming with so much energy that were she able to pull her own heart out of her chest, she was pretty sure it would be emitting a similar radiance as the stone.

With wide eyes, Red tore her gaze away from the necklace and glanced back up to find Snow full of amusement. "Where did you find it?" she breathed, relief flooding her system.

Snow smirked, her eyes twinkling. "Take a guess."

Sighing, Red rubbed her forehead, being careful not to smear any of her painstakingly applied make-up. "Clementine." So at least she was not crazy. That was good. _Although,_ she thought ruefully, _l_ _ooks like I'm gonna have to have that little talk with Clemmy after all_ _and that is not so good._

"Got it in one," Snow sang. "I found her wearing it while twirling around the living room pretending to be her Mama dancing at her wedding. It was very cute."

Red rolled her eyes. "Yeah," she said, managing to smile at the image of her daughter Snow had conjured despite her slight annoyance. "She is that and it's a good thing, 'cause if she wasn't, I'd take her back." Sometimes Red truthfully felt that way, though only for a little while when she was struggling not to tear her hair out at the roots due to her daughter's mule-like obstinance.

"Red!" Snow exclaimed in disbelief, only halfway serious with her chiding. "What a terrible thing to say about your child."

"It's true, though," Red insisted to a skeptical looking Snow.

"Oh, it isn't all that bad. She's an angel when she comes over to play with Evan."

Red scoffed. "Of course you'd say that! You're 'Auntie M&M' and only get to see Clemmy the fun-loving and adorable kid who is rainbows and unicorns and bouncing chestnut curls. You're not around when Clemmy the monster comes out to play. _Nooooo_. It's Regina and I that have to deal with her then. You should come around some time when she's in one of her moods...change your tune right quick."

Laughing, Snow folded her arms across her chest and pouted mockingly. "Poor Red. Years on the run from an Evil Queen and almost three decades living under a curse...only to be done in by a five year old."

"But Snow, she's not just a five year old," Red replied, wide-eyed for exaggerated effect. "She's a five year old who acts just like her mother: too smart for her own good, ridiculously stubborn, sassy, domineering, vindictive, hateful, petty and she can be downright mean."

"Hmm, yet those very traits were part of what attracted you to Regina in the first place were they not?" Snow countered sagely. That the point was accurate only aggravated Red. "And anyways, you always said you enjoyed a good challenge, so I don't really see why you're complaining." Huffing, Red glared daggers at her oldest friend which only made Snow smirk again for a brief second, after which her facial muscles smoothed out to a more tender expression meant to disarm Red's growing annoyance before it ruined her day. "And you forget that while Clementine is very much like her mother in those ways, she is in other ways as well. She can be sweet, too, and giving, and thoughtful, and immensely loving, and at the very least, she is _always_ entertaining."

 _It worked, damn her_ , Red thought, chuckling despite herself at the last one. "That is true, I guess. Never a dull moment with that little imp around."

Never a dull moment, indeed. Clementine was every bit the handful. Snow really had no idea. It constantly took Red by surprise how a child could be so funny and happy one moment and downright devious the next.

There was one time in particular that sprang to mind in which Red left Clementine in her room playing with her Elsa and Anna dolls while she went downstairs to start dinner. Regina had been running late, so Red had to whip something up on the fly and had decided to make a meatloaf using Granny's secret recipe, which incidentally Regina adored. Red had figured it killed two birds with one stone since it was both relatively easy to prepare and would earn her some brownie points with her sometimes tempestuous paramour.

She was only downstairs for about half an hour and was just putting the meatloaf in the oven when the real life Elsa and Anna came barreling through the front door. Being a werewolf meant Red was always ready to defend herself and her family, so when Regina wasn't home, she left the door unlocked. Cursing herself for that arrogance, she rushed out of the kitchen to intercept whoever had burst into the house. Seconds later, she entered the hallway to see what was going on, only to discover the royal sisters in their casual clothes, hunched over at the waist looking like they'd sprinted the entire two blocks from their shared 'vacation' home next door to Emma.

"What the hell are you guys doing here?" Red had asked the red faced sisters.

"Clemmy called," Elsa replied, her eyes wide with fright as she straightened up at Red's address.

"Yeah," Anna added, still panting slightly though also managing to respond in a very Anna-like way. "She said it was a life or death situation, which I found odd because surely you and Regina can handle almost anything, but then I thought, 'hey, this _is_ Clemmy we're talking about and she doesn't lie and she's so very smart and..."

"Anna," a much calmer Elsa interrupted, cutting an indulgent grin to Red who returned it. "Slow down. Take a breath. And yes, what Anna said is correct. We were informed that something terrible had happened and we just acted without thinking. I'm sorry."

"Well, don't be. You did the right thing," Red had replied, grateful for how much her friends cared but already suspicious of her daughter. First of all, Anna was terribly naive, and while it got her in a lot of trouble, it was an adorable trait; but secondly, Clementine most certainly _could_ lie and had done so on a number of occasions to both of her mothers. As such, Red would not put it past her wily child to concoct some absurd scenario just to get Elsa and Anna to visit.

Since in her hurry to see who had barged in the house she'd not bothered to take her oven mitts off, Red hurriedly stuffed them into the back pockets of her jeans and then ushered the Queen and Princess of Arendelle more properly into her home. Once both were up on the landing, she lead them over to the stairs and then took a deep breath, preparing herself for whatever surprise awaited her in her daughter's room. "Alright, let's go see what's up."

When the three of them reached Clementine's bedroom, they all stopped in unison in the doorway. To Red's horror, her daughter had completely demolished the miniature Ice Castle Elsa had magically created as a gift for her birthday and which was enchanted to never melt. Considering who was currently staring disbelievingly at said disaster area along with her, that discovery was quite mortifying, but as if that were not enough, both the Elsa and Anna dolls (which just so happened to be Clementine's 'mostest favorites in the whole wide world') were lying headless and armless in the wreckage as well. Standing over them was a doe-eyed Clementine, crocodile tears running down her cheeks as she clutched her plushy Marshmallow in an overly tight grip.

"Why'd you do that, Marshmallow?" she asked the inanimate object the same instant she caught her audience staring at her, though she pretended not to see them. It was a ruse Red was well acquainted with. The child was absolutely duplicitous when she wanted to be. "You kill't them and blowed up the castle! Now I can't play with Elsa and Anna no more. I'm gonna tell Mama and she's gonna put your ass in time out!"

"Clementine Elena Mills!" Red had shouted, flushing with chagrin. "We don't use that kind of language in this house." Behind her, she heard Anna sniggering which prompted Elsa to elbow her soon after, eliciting a protested squeak of, 'hey!'

Turning big, liquid blue eyes up as if totally prepared for her mother's reaction, Clementine replied, "But you do it all the time! I hear you. You say other words, too, like holy shi..."

"Clemmy! Don't even finish that!" Red had burst out, now borderline humiliated. She was sure at the time that her face could rival her cloak for brilliance in hue. "I don't care what you've heard Mama say, those words are _not_ appropriate for young ladies like yourself! And besides that, if your Mommy found out you heard them from me, she'd kill me and then you'd have bury me and would never see me again. Is that what you want?" Red felt a little bad for the guilt trip but she'd been so flustered that the words just sort of tumbled out.

Her chin quivering, Clementine shuffled her little feet back and forth. "No, Mama."

"Then I don't want to hear that kind of...stuff...anymore. Okay?"

Sniffling, Clementine swiped at her eyes with her sleeve. "Okay, Mama."

Sighing, Red stepped over to the mess and then dropped to her haunches to look at her child at eye level. "Now, why did you call Elsa and Anna and get them all worried?"

Gesturing at the floor, Clementine glared at her mother as if it should be obvious, suddenly appearing every inch the imperious little Queen. Typically, such displays made Regina proud as a peacock. "Anna was visiting Elsa in her snow castle and Marshmallow got mad 'cause he was hungry and so he stomped the castle down and then kill't Elsa and Anna. I seen him do it."

Red sighed. It was no fun at all parenting when Regina wasn't around to be the bad guy. As an ex-Evil Queen, she was just so good at it that her stern lectures and withering glares directed toward Clementine even made Red cringe from time to time. The woman could be so scary that she could get their daughter to obey even when Red could not while under the influence of the wolf.

It was a scientifically proven fact that when Regina was pissed, mountains quaked in their metaphorical boots, so the stubborn impudence of a five year old was no match for the fearsome displays the Queen of Mifflin Street could produce. Hell, using only her facial muscles, at a glance Regina could make Clementine either: a) immediately improve her behavior, b) go scurrying for cover while bewailing her innocence in a rather futile manner, or c) run to Red and wrap herself around her other mother's legs in a desperate bid for mercy. Whatever the outcome, the unacceptable behavior stopped. But Regina was not there that evening to be the bad guy, which left Red to deal with the problem solo.

Looking back over her shoulder, she raised incredulous eyebrows at her guests at the elaborate attempt at deflection. Both Elsa and Anna were barely holding back their giggles, and to be honest, Red was too because it was pretty damn impressive for a five year old to tell such an absurd lie in such a convincing manner. Yet, as Clementine's mother, she had to be in serious mode for the moment so she schooled her features into her best expression of motherly disapproval.

"Sweetheart," Red then said to her daughter, "Marshmallow is just a toy. He doesn't have feelings. You know this. So I think that it was _you_ who was hungry and got mad and that it was _you_ who knocked the castle down and broke the dolls." When Clementine started to protest, Red shushed her with a warning noise. "Tell the truth, young lady."

Ducking her head down as her shoulders sank, Clementine kicked at a broken piece of what was once a set of stairs. "It was me. I'm sorry, Mama."

At the somewhat heartfelt apology, Red smothered her grin. Extending her hand out toward her semi-repentant daughter, she then said, "That's better. Now...give Mama her phone back, please."

Pouting, Clementine walked over to her bed, retrieved Red's phone and then placed it in her hand, all without speaking.

"Thank you."

Still pouting, Clementine shrugged her shoulders. Unable to endure it anymore, Red reached out to smooth a hand over her daughter's hair. "I love you, baby."

And those were the magic words. Suddenly, Clementine launched herself at Red, hopping up into her mother's arms and throwing her legs around her waist as she began to whimper. "It's okay, Clemmy," Red soothed, gently rubbing her daughter's back. "I forgive you, but you can't take out your anger on your toys, even though I know it's really fun to break stuff. Remember what Mommy says?"

Nodding, Clementine tucked her head against her mother's shoulder and sighed, melting all of Red's earlier anger and embarrassment away. "In this house we use our words."

"Mmhmm, that's right," Red confirmed, "so remember that next time, okay?" Clementine nodded. Turning toward the door where Anna and Elsa were still hovering, Red found that in the time it took her to chastise her daughter, their amusement at Clementine's antics had been replaced by overly saccharine expressions that made Red smile with nearly equal sentimentality. "But," she redirected her attention to Clementine, "since they're already here, _maybe_ if they were asked nicely Elsa and Anna might be convinced to stay for dinner. Would you like that?"

Raising up in her mother's arms, Clemmy's entire demeanor transformed. In the blink of an eye she was beaming at both Red and the royal guests in equal measure. "Yes, yes! Oh, please, Mama, please! Aunties," she then looked at Elsa and Anna, pleading at them with her irresistible baby blues, "will you stay? _Please_?"

"How could we possibly say no to her royal highness, Princess Clementine of Misthaven?" Elsa had replied after taking a deep bow, which delighted Clemmy to no end since she loved to be addressed by her official title. Regina rarely permitted it, though, wanting to prevent Clementine from developing a false sense of entitlement or importance, which was good enough reason for Red. She'd never cared for titles anyway. Elsa then inclined her head toward her sister. "It would be our honor, wouldn't it, Anna?"

"Yes, of course!" Anna clapped excitedly. Striding into the room properly, she plopped down to sit cross legged next to the piled up mess on the floor. "Let's see what we can do about this castle first. Clemmy, come help me!"

After wiggling out of Red's arms, Clementine rushed over to Anna and climbed into her lap while they started to pick up the puzzle pieces together. Elsa soon joined them after commenting to Red on how precious her daughter was. If only Elsa knew, Red had thought.

The night wound up being a blast for everyone but that was just one such occasion. There were others that had endings involving screaming and crying and hour upon hour of pouting. Of course, none of that meant that Clementine wasn't adored and that she wasn't spoiled. With so many aunts and uncles and an older brother who lived to dote on her, that was kind of unavoidable. One thing was for sure, though: life was never dull with Clementine on the loose, which was why both of her mothers often worried about the possibility of prematurely graying, particularly her more elegant parent, although the thought of Regina with gray hair was not at all unappealing.

Like Henry, Clementine was blessed to have Regina as a mother. Although it was Red who carried their daughter and shared DNA with her, it was Regina who was the apple of Clementine's eye. While Red knew her daughter loved her (and she adored her little girl right back), whenever Mommy walked in the room, it was bye-bye Mama as she ran headlong into Regina's arms. For anyone else, that might have been a source of envy, but not for Red. She loved that Clementine was so attached to Regina. Hell, Red understood because she was pretty attached to Regina, too. Still, while it didn't bother Red at all, many found it strange that Clementine preferred Regina since biologically they were unrelated.

When Red had first started discussing the possibility of having a child with her partner, Regina confessed that she'd taken a potion when younger that rendered herself barren so she was unable to carry a child. It was a disappointing blow for Red who had really wanted a kid with Regina's skin tone and hair color. But when it came down to it, DNA was inconsequential, an opinion which Regina obviously shared since she had adopted Henry and loved him with a fierceness that even a lioness could not reproduce. All that mattered to Red was that she wanted a baby with Regina, so she didn't really care how that happened.

It was almost six years ago now that they decided to go ahead with their plans. After scouring the area for fertility clinics, they found a doctor with high enough recommendations that Regina felt comfortable consulting. After thoroughly examining Red, he recommended artificial insemination due to Red's startlingly good health in both physiological and reproductive terms. When they got home, Red had went to great length to give Regina an out if she was feeling uncomfortable but her partner had insisted she was fine and wanted to proceed so long as Red was willing, which Red enthusiastically asserted that she was.

During the initial process that followed, Regina's proclamation that she was fine seemed to be sorely tested. In the waiting room, she had paced back and forth like a caged tigress, chewing on her fingernails in a very uncharacteristic show of nerves. The longer time went on, the more Regina stressed, and the more Red worried. Red had thought several times during the wait that they would wind up back home with Regina in tears because she was unable to make it through even the selection process and had ruined things for them both. But despite how jittery she was, Regina held herself together long enough for it to come time to pick a donor.

As they sat in a private room flipping through a book of individuals who had opted to include pictures of themselves along with their statistics and medical histories, they came across a young man that actually made Regina gasp. His name was Ryan Fletcher and according to his details he had been studying to enter the intelligence field in some capacity. When Red had looked at Regina, who went stone cold still, she'd found her girlfriend studying the book with a stricken expression, her face as pale as Red had ever seen.

"What's wrong?"

"I..." Regina had begun, eyes wide in disbelief. "I don't know how...I mean, it can't be possible. How could it? I watched it. I saw him die. I...I don't understand."

"What are you talking about, Babe?" Red had frowned, confused about the reaction.

Regina pointed to the picture of Mr. Fletcher. "That man...he has Daniel's face. And it's not just that he looks like Daniel. I mean, that is literally Daniel's face."

That rocked Red's world almost as much as Regina's. She'd heard the story from Regina herself of how Cora crushed Daniel's heart in front of Regina as a punishment for committing the sin of choosing her own fate rather than the one Cora had planned out for her. After echoing Regina's disbelief, they went on to study the man's information. He was very different, Regina commented, from the stable boy who had preferred being outdoors and working with animals to the cold, clinical profession Mr. Fletcher had chosen to pursue. Because of that difference and the fact that the man had been born outside Storybrooke, they concluded it could not have been Daniel, but the coincidence was startling all the same.

Yet, even when considering how unnerving it was at first, the more Red thought about it, the more it had seemed like destiny was at work, and to her amazement Regina actually agreed. Thus their choice was made. Another week later, Red went in for the procedure and found out two weeks afterward that she was pregnant.

Unfortunately, Regina was not there to hear the happy news, for the day after the procedure, Henry was kidnapped by what turned out to be his great-grandfather, a fact that made Red question how convoluted the family trees back in the Enchanted Forest really were. As his mother, Regina was obviously not going to be kept away from the effort to recover him, but because there was a chance Red might be pregnant, she was unilaterally forbidden to join said rescue mission. The parting that resulted between them on the docks before departure was a bitter one, ranking right up there on Red's list of all time bad days with the Curse being cast and then her being stabbed the day it was broken.

For Red, the seven months that followed Regina leaving for Neverland were a mixture of agony and joy: she was pregnant but her partner was not with her to share in the experience. During the days, she bubbled over with happiness at the knowledge she was going to be a mother, her mask of strength firmly in place, but at night, she cried her miseries into the welcome embrace of the moonlit night, worrying incessantly about the prospect of Regina never coming back and of having to raise their baby alone.

Adding to that stress was the fact that she was adapting to the changes in her body that came along with growing a human being inside of it without Regina to help her through the transition. Every time she got a new craving, she thought of her better half, wondering whether Regina would be disgusted or delighted by Red's incessant need for cottage cheese, baby dill pickles, and vanilla bean ice cream. Even going through morning sickness was made worse by Regina's absence, for with each morning Red spent in the floor of the master bathroom, she was reminded that Regina was a world away and that she had no idea where her lover was, what she was doing, or if she was even still alive. The hormonal changes alone were difficult enough for Red to adjust to, but coping with all of that alone was torturous to the point that despondency threatened to rob her at times of the life altering developments that came along with bringing a new life into the world.

It was only due to a combination of her own sheer determination not to ruin the entire pregnancy for herself and Belle's unexpectedly patient friendship and support that got her through those seven months. But eventually the day came in which the Jolly Roger returned to Storybrooke.

Red was at home when it happened, having been ordered off her feet earlier in the day by a worried Granny who had noticed when her back began to ache to the point she couldn't hide her winces every time she so much as bent refill someones coffee. It was around noon when Granny called with the news that she had been longing to hear. Tossing the book she'd been reading to the floor, Red hastily changed out of her comfortable clothes into some maternity jeans and a shirt Belle had bought her, then bolted out of the house as fast as she could move.

By the time she arrived at the docks, the returned heroes were already disembarking down the gangplank looking exhausted and bedraggled. With excitement roiling in her chest and a knot of anxiety in her stomach, Red began waddling down toward them. But the moment she caught sight of Regina's black hair and coat, her heart sped up to the point of racing and she picked up her pace to run as fast as she could without risking her balance. She was sure she looked ridiculous trying to run at seven months pregnant, probably resembling something like a Spheniscidae version of Carl Lewis, but at the time, she hadn't cared enough to remain dignified at the expense of getting to Regina as soon as possible.

Once Red saw her too-long-absent lover reach the bottom of the gangplank, she began to scream. "Regina! Regina!"

The second Regina turned and caught sight of Red wobbling toward her, her eyes widened, and she stumbled back, nearly falling to the ground. It was only Emma's quick reflexes that steadied her enough to keep her upright, and by the time Red reached her, she was still shaky.

"Hey," Red managed to gasp out, breathing heavily from the exertion of having run so fast with twenty extra pounds of weight on top of carrying a four and a half pound baby inside of her. But Regina did not returned the greeting. Instead, she just stood there gaping like a fish as if unable to process what she was seeing. "Regina?" Red tried again, frowning with worry. "Are you okay?"

"You're..." Regina floundered, gesturing toward Red's distended abdomen. "You're...I didn't...Is it?"

"Yes, I know, and yes," Red answered each stunted question without needing elaboration, smiling at her perplexed lover. "I found out a week after you guys left. Guess the first time was the charm for me. Go, go werewolf fertility!" Giving out a faux cheer, Red noticed Emma chuckle while Granny sniggered at the attempt at humor, but Regina still looked like she was in shock. "Hey, it's okay," Red reached out for her, grasping Regina's fingers in her own. They were cold and stiff to the touch. Definitely in shock. "I'm okay. Our kid is okay. It's all good here, hon, so don't freak out on me now. I just got you back, I can't have you checking out so soon."

For whatever reason, that sentence seemed to break Regina out of her trance-like state. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry," she cried out, collapsing into Red's arms for an awkward hug due to Red's bulge before pulling back to rest her hand on said swollen belly. "I missed everything!"

"Not everything," Red reassured her, smiling through a prickling of tears she held back. She was not about to mar their reunion by sniveling like they were in some cliché movie. "She's yet to be born, so you'll get to be there for that at least."

Looking up in awe, Regina breathed out, "She?"

"Yeah," Red winced ever-so-slightly. "I wasn't sure whether or not you'd make it back in time and I didn't want to be surprised. I let Victor tell me the sex at my last appointment."

Biting her lip to the point Red though it might bleed, Regina looked absolutely guild-ridden. "I'm so very sorry, Red. You went through all of that alone. I should have been here, I should have..."

"Hey, stop with the apologies," Red cut her off, unable to abide Regina's self-flagellation. She'd had good reasons for leaving and Red told her so. "You did what you had to do. Henry is your son. He comes first."

"But I have another child to think about now..."

"Which you didn't know about. And besides, I had Granny and Belle. They helped out a lot."

Regina glanced gratefully at Granny, who nodded once as if in reference to some unspoken agreement between the two that Red was not privy to. Red had been too happy to be annoyed at the trading of insider information. "Thank you, Granny."

"Don't mention it, your Majesty," Granny replied curtly. "There's nothing I wouldn't do for my girl."

Feeling warmth spread up to the tips of her ears, Red melted. "Aww, Gran!"

"Don't even start, girl," Granny warned, stiffening for show. "I don't do mushy."

"Whatever," Red grinned and then loped up to place a sloppy kiss on her grandmother's ruddy cheek. Granny reacted by swatting her away but with the beginnings of a dimpled smile. After sidling back to Regina's side, Red ducked into her right side, burrowing her nose into Regina's neck to take several long inhales, savoring the unique scent of the woman she loved.

Settling into the arm Regina wound around her shoulder, Red let her head fall down to Regina's shoulder as her partner fixed her gaze upon Belle, looking torn between gratitude and envy.

"I suppose I owe you my thanks as well," Regina said, and Red could tell by the tone that envy was winning out.

"You do," Red confirmed in defense of her friend. Lifting her head from Regina's shoulder, she slid out from beneath her arm and took the fingers that were now dangling next to her side. Threading their fingers together, Red looked over to Belle with a smile. "When Granny couldn't come, she was with me for my doctor's visits, called me every night to check if I needed anything, and even brought me soup when I was too sick to get out of bed."

Regina's guilty look reappeared with a vengeance as she whirled on Red. "You were sick?"

"Just bad morning sickness," Red explained, cursing herself for having even mentioned it. "Like, really, _really_ bad. But I got through it thanks to Belle here and of course, Granny."

Looking back at the aptly named Librarian who loved a man for whom Regina had a complicated set of emotions, the former Queen inclined her head in appreciation. "In that case you have my sincere gratitude, Belle. For being there for Red in my stead, I owe you a debt I'm not sure I can repay."

"Oh, it's no bother," Belle replied with genuine happiness. "She's my friend. I was glad to be there for her, not that she needed me. Don't let her sell herself short. Most of it was all her. She's strong, that one."

Regina's face softened immeasurably as she gazed at Red. "Yes, she is."

Under so much undeserved praise, Red blushed to her roots. "Stop it, you two. Millions upon millions of women have done this before me, so it's not like I'm anything special."

"But you are to me," Regina declared with undisguised devotion, gently sweeping a lock of Red's hair behind her ear.

"And to me," Henry added, stepping up to stand at his mother's side.

"Me too," said Belle.

From behind Regina, Emma gave Red a warm smile. "Count me in as well."

"And me," David chimed in, walking up to Red hand in hand with his wife.

Seeing Snow staring at her with wonder, Red asked her old friend, "And what about you?"

"You already know how I feel, Red." Her eyes misty with emotion. "You're the best person I've ever known. I'm so happy for you."

"We all are," David then agreed, grasping Red's forearm and then nodding at Regina. "For both of you. You deserve this."

Again unable to stand having so much esteem directed at her, Red ducked her head and shrugged, toeing the wooden planks of the dock platform. "Thanks, guys."

"Indeed," Regina agreed, shifting with discomfort of her own, which she then deflected by changing the subject as she was apt to do. "You have my thanks as well, though I think I need to get this one home and put her to bed." At that, she stepped forward and tugged on Red's hand. "She needs her rest if she's to deliver my child healthy."

"Gee thanks, Regina," Red groused as she let Regina lead her away from her friends, waving back behind her to their amused calls of farewell. "I do this all on my own for seven months and now that you're back, you're bossing me around and treating me like a breeding cow? I hate to break it to ya, babe, but it don't work that way."

"In my house it does," Regina grinned, clearly goading her. They'd had a lot of missed months of banter to make up for.

"Well, we're not in your house," Red countered.

"Not yet but we will be soon."

"Yes, but that's _our_ house."

"Oh, is it? Last I checked it was my name on the deed."

"Jesus, Regina. Sometimes you drive me up the damn wall. Hey, you know what? Why don't you just go back to Neverland. It's the second star to the right and straight on till morning if you need the directions."

From the corner of her eye, Red caught Henry looking back behind him with an exasperated expression of humor on his face. Red didn't have to turn to know that their friends were also having a laugh over their repartee.

"I don't need directions, dear," Regina smirked. "I have an impeccable sense of direction."

At that, Red grinned devilishly. "Oh, yeah? Well, what about that time you got lost in the woods and I had to find you as the wolf? From what I saw you couldn't tell true north from your own ass!"

Regina glowered when Henry burst out laughing. "I told you never to mention that again! And watch your language. She's sorry, Henry."

"Yes, Henry, I'm sorry." Red wasn't sorry and Regina knew that judging by the cutting glare she received. Unashamed, Red shrugged, causing Regina to sigh.

"It's cool," was Henry's response, unaffected by what he'd heard but still grinning. "I heard much, much worse while I was with the lost boys."

At Regina's scandalized expression, Red nudged her shoulder into her lover's and laughed right along with the boy she had come to love as her own. After that, she snuggled into Regina's side and while still exchanging good-natured quips and playful insults with her family along the way, Red let herself be escorted back to where Regina had parked her Mercedes before the trip to Neverland. By the time they got home, Red was so happy that she permitted Regina to put her to bed without argument, though she was only willing to acquiesce so far as to take a short nap. Later that night, however, she was more than happy to fall asleep in Regina's arms with the comfort of her lover's hand resting protectively over where their child was growing. For the first time in seven months, she slept like a baby.

With Regina and Henry back home, it did not take long for routine to settle back in. And so, two very short months later and after five hours of excruciatingly painful and shockingly messy labor, Clementine was born. She was perfect in every way, with ten fingers and toes, shocking blue eyes, a head full of brown hair, and a very well-developed set of lungs. Regina had cried, Red had cried, and then they cried together as they cuddled up on the cramped hospital bed to hold their perfect little bundle of joy while Henry sat at the bedside with his baby sister's tiny fingers in his outstretched hand.

Little did they know that big trouble comes in small packages. Still, Red wouldn't trade her daughter for anything in the world.

"Careful," Snow laughed at Red's previous comment when she'd referred to her daughter as an imp. "Don't let her mother hear you call her that."

Red blew out a loud breath, making a raspberry-like noise of fearful agreement with her lips. "Isn't that the truth. Speaking of, I wonder if he'll make an appearance with Belle. Did you see him?"

"I did," Snow nodded.

Red winced. "And? Did Regina see him? What did she say?"

Shrugging, Snow walked over from the doorway and after kicking her heels off bunched the hem of her dress up in her hands so that she could very carefully sit beside Red. Pushing Red's hair to the side, she leaned in to fasten the ametite necklace around her neck.

"She seemed fine," Snow answered as she worked. "They spoke to one another and I didn't detect any tension. To be honest, I don't think anything could ruin today for Regina. She's walking on cloud nine right now." Once the necklace was in place, Snow rearranged Red's hair and sat back with a smile.

Red couldn't help the dreamy look of hopeful happiness that passed her face at Snow's description of Regina's mood. "Yeah?"

"Why wouldn't she be?" Snow asked, smiling widely. "She's about to get married to the best, most beautiful, and perfect woman in the world." In an aside voice, she added, though it was only half-serious, "aside from my daughter, of course."

"Of course," Red laughed, blushing as she smoothed her hands over the pendant hanging above her heart. It was warm to the touch. "But thank you, even though you're clearly biased on both accounts."

Turning just slightly enough that she could grasp Red's hands, Snow gave them an affectionate squeeze, her smile never diminishing. "I mean it, Red. I've seen many beautiful brides in my day but none were as radiant as you are. You're shining like the sun."

It was hard for Red not to preen at that, though she was sure her beaming smile revealed plenty of how she felt under such high praise. "I'm glad to hear you say that. I've been waiting for this day so long. To be honest, I wasn't really sure it would ever come."

At that, Snow reached out to rub her thumb feather-light along Red's cheek. "Oh, sweetie," she cooed, "it was _always_ going to happen. Regina just needed time to work through her...bad experiences in the past."

The last words were spoken by Snow with great sorrow and Red knew why. Snow's father. When Red considered that whole tragic affair, it hurt her to realize that Snow's opinion of her father had been irreparably tarnished by the truth. Yet while she hated that Snow had to go through that pain, it was a healthy one, one she needed to experience if she were ever going to understand why Regina had made the choices she did, why she had become the Evil Queen.

For most of her life, Snow had been idolizing a man who perpetrated an unspeakable violation on Regina, however kind he attempted to be in doing so. It took many years of subtle nudging, but when Red finally wore Regina down enough that she'd confessed her experiences to Snow, many tears were shed by all.

Initially, Snow had stubbornly rejected any insinuation that her father had done something wrong. Leopold, she'd argued, had not forced Regina into the marriage and more than that, he was not a bad man, which Red hadn't doubted for the most part. But what Snow was forgetting and Red had to explain to her distraught friend, was that however magnanimous Leopold seemed to his daughter and those he cared for, he was first and foremost a king, and in the Enchanted Forest kings took what they wanted. It was just the way things were. It didn't matter that Regina's personal hell had been wrapped up in silken cloth and crowned with gold and jewels, it was still abuse, still torment.

Having explained that, Snow finally accepted the truth and broke down into Red's arms. It was a heartrending experience, Red knew, to have lofty dreams or pristine perceptions of a parent shatter around ones feet. She'd lived it with her own mother, but those difficult lessons had helped her to guide Snow through her ordeal. All things considered, Snow was coping well now, having found a way to a preserve the good memories of her father while at the same time acknowledging to Regina how wrong what she had been through was, and that at least in part, her vengeance had been justified. That concession marked the beginning of a bridge being built between the two former mortal enemies with which they began to reconstruct their fragile relationship.

Red was glad of it. She needed them both in her life, and while she needed the sisterhood she felt with Snow, it paled in comparison to her need for Regina's love. Thankfully, since the two had somewhat reconciled, there was no need for Red to choose, which was a burden off her shoulders she had carried around for way too long.

"I know," Red replied to Snow after thinking things through, "it just felt like she might never get there. She told me once several years ago that she was open to the idea at a later date, but she seemed so spooked by the concept of marriage I just wrote it off as something that probably wouldn't happen. I was okay with it as long as I could be with her, and I still am, it's just..." Trailing off, Red looked away, feeling a bit guilty for wanting something so badly that she knew might be hurting Regina, despite appearances.

"It's just now that it's here, you feel like if it didn't happen, you would have missed out on something incredible," Snow supplied correctly. "Red. Red," she called, and when Red did not respond, Snow forcibly but gently guided Red's chin back around with her index finger. "Listen to me, okay? It's not wrong to feel that way." Red bit her lip furtively. "It's not! I've talked to Regina about this at length, and I promise you that she understands."

Tilting her head, Snow trailed a finger down one of the thick braids that were woven into the hair on the crown of Red's head, courtesy of Granny. "You're a hopeless romantic, honey, and always have been," she continued while gazing at Red through tender eyes. "When you look at marriage you see a miracle, something precious that's worth experiencing because it means you've found someone to share your whole life with: your heart, your soul, your body, your mind, and your hopes and dreams. Regina loves that about you because believe it or not, she used to be that way, too. And while she may have misgivings, they aren't about you. That's why she's doing this."

"But I don't want her to do this because of me," Red countered, fighting off tears once more. "I want her to do this because she loves me and she loves us and she wants this as much as I do."

"Sweetie, she does," Snow soothed. Red recognized her friend was trying to keep her calm, so she remained skeptical yet she also hated herself for having even a tiny shred of doubt. "She does!" Snow insisted, having caught Red's look. "I wouldn't lie to you, Red, not about this, and neither would Regina. Let me ask you something, did she or did she not propose to you?"

Nodding meekly, Red sucked her bottom lip between her teeth.

"So, you see, you didn't even have to ask her. She wants this! Just trust in that, okay? Trust in what you have together. It's got you this far and it'll take you the rest of the way."

Inhaling deeply, Red closed her eyes and let all of her worries and frivolous doubts flow out of her body along with her exhale. "Okay," she breathed, looking back at Snow, "okay, you're right. I'm being silly. I'm just nervous. God, Snow, I'm getting married today." With a look at Snow of hopeful amazement, Red allowed herself to smile again.

"You really are!" Snow agreed, grinning from ear to ear. "So, now that your worries are eased and your _beloved_ necklace has been located, shall I call the girls up? They're waiting downstairs with your dress."

Steeling herself, Red straightened her spine and clapped her hands down on her thighs before standing. "Let's do this."

And then it began. The first to arrive through the door was a radiantly grinning Emma in her maroon bridesmaid dress, her blonde hair piled up into a neat bun atop her head. Red's dress was draped over her arm in its gown bag, ready to be put on.

"So...you ready for the old ball and chain?" Emma joked, her eyes crinkling with merriment.

"I've been ready, but doesn't this mean you're next?" Red replied, winking playfully. "After all, you'll be the last of us that is technically single." Which was true. Emma and Killian had lived together for a few years, but seemed to be in no rush to make it permanent, which Red completely understood having lived with Regina for over five years before taking the next step. Emma was just too easy to tease about it, so since Regina proposed Red could never resist pointing out that Emma was fixing to be the sole member of the group without a ring on her finger.

Though she knew the suggestion to be a jest, Emma's eyes widened as if in frantic denial. "God, no! Shut your trap, Rubes, don't even joke about the 'm' word. Jesus." Emma shuddered for show as both Red and Snow rolled their eyes. Emma had changed a great deal over the years, but there were some things that remained from her days outside Storybrooke, such as her irrational gamophobia. "That's the one good thing about being with a pirate. He doesn't wanna get married any more than I do."

"Bah," Red retorted, smoothing a hand down her slip. "You guys are as good as married already."

"Very true," piped up Snow from behind Red's shoulder, earning a glare from her daughter just as Belle came around the corner, looking beautiful as always.

Fixing on Belle with a near desperate look, Emma cried, "Save me, Belle! These vultures want to marry me off!"

"God forbid!" Belle gasped, holding a mocking hand to her chest. "Haven't you all learned by now that while swans mate for life...they don't marry." With her hips cocked out to one side and her hands on her hips, Belle's flippant expression had Red waiting to hear the rimshot at the end of the quip. The woman had been around Rumplestiltskin for far, far too long.

Grasping onto Belle's humorous rejoinder, Emma pointed at her with an empathic nod, clearly pleased that at least someone was taking her part, however tongue-in-cheek. "Listen to this woman. She is a wise one."

"Debatable," Red countered, raising her eyebrows suggestively at Belle.

Belle's blue eyes narrowed. "Don't even start with that nonsense about Rumple," she said in a mostly lighthearted tone, though there was still a bit of an edge there that Red had been all too aware she would awaken with such an implication. One of the things she loved teasing Belle about was her choice of a husband, if only because it was one of few topics that riled Belle up enough that she would get smart with her retorts. After years of living with Regina, Red had grown a little too fond of verbal sparring. Raising an eyebrow, Belle then gestured with her hand from Red's feet to her head and drawled, "I mean, hellooooo, Mrs. Evil Queen."

As her friends laughed, Red preened shamelessly, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin as though the proudest woman on earth – which she was – after which she dipped into a dramatic curtsey. The move was particularly aimed it at Belle, who giggled openly at Red's silliness. "Why, thank you, Mrs. Gold, for that lovely compliment. However, I am not yet Mrs. Evil Queen."

"Well, then," Belle replied around a wide smile, "let's rectify that, shall we?" She then waved Emma over as she approached Red. "Let's get our girl into her dress and then out there to her Queen."

Red was unable to help the eager grin that formed on her face as she gazed at her newest friend among the group. Belle's arrival to town had been the balm no one knew Storybrooke needed, quieting the beast that was Rumplestiltskin at least enough that he became tolerable to the general public. It hadn't taken Red long to develop an affinity for the witty, astute, yet remarkably kind and compassionate young woman, and as time passed, their friendship grew easily and naturally, like a dandelion in spring.

After giving a whimsical salute, Emma complied, and soon a flurry of activity ensured that made the next half hour pass by as if mere minutes. Getting into her dress proved to be the least bothersome part of the preparations. She'd chosen a simple a-line dress with a v-cut in the back, adorned at the top with a sheer pattern of floral design; it was much in line with who Red was as person. While Ruby bad been flashy and provocative, Red was a conservative girl, and although she'd happily adopted some of Ruby's more liberal dress code in every day life, for her wedding she had reverted to form. At heart, she was traditional, perhaps due to how untraditional her life had been to date, and because of that she was clinging to the values ingrained from her childhood for such an important event. Whatever the case, the dress was beautiful and if even if no one else agreed, Red loved it.

While getting the dress on was a relative breeze, the hardest part of those final minutes before the ceremony was listening to her friends take turns telling her how much she meant to them and how happy they were for her. As a girl, she had been somewhat of a loner, which only got worse as she grew older. After her 13th birthday, Granny had starting preaching the values of isolation along with thrusting the ever-present responsibility of a red cloak upon her, none of which encouraged Red to seek out social fulfillment. Peter was the only person who tried to be friends with her after she withdrew into herself, so she didn't really know what it was like to have a group of friends (female friends in particular) with which to share such a momentous event, making the experience a little overwhelming.

Of course, while true that all of the girls were there when Clementine was born, that was a different occasion. Red had known that Snow, Emma, and Belle were right outside the room, but in that moment she hadn't really cared about anything or anyone else aside from Regina, Henry, Granny, and Clementine, the tiny little squealing bundle of pink skin and blue eyes that they brought into the world together. But the wedding, Red realized, was not just for her immediate family. Rather, it was for everyone they loved, their family and friends and acquaintances. Even more, it was a chance for the town to bond over the celebration of a love between two people who had sacrificed so much to save and protect it, one of which had created it. This was proven by the unrehearsed speeches her bridesmaids gave, each taking a few minutes in turn to speak their hearts.

The first was Emma, and it was very difficult for Red to restrain her tears through the funny anecdotes and heartfelt words of gratitude she spoke. Though typically spartan with her emotions, Emma hadn't held back, going so far as to thank Red for being one of the reasons she'd chosen to stay in Storybrooke after Henry quite unwillingly roped her into returning him home. She had then expressed her thanks that Red had remained her friend even when she was at odds with Regina, which tended to be quite often seeing as Emma was Sheriff and Regina was mayor and they were both strong, stubborn, set in their ways alpha females. But to Red, it was obvious how much it meant to Emma that beyond her family she had someone she could count on and it honored Red to be considered that person.

Next came Belle, who had surprised Red with her declaration that she'd always suspected Regina had someone in her life to dull those razor sharp Evil Queen edges so long ago. She'd been convinced of it by the way the unfailingly wrathful woman had chosen to protect her rather than wield her as a weapon against the man she loved. The speech ended with Belle declaring that other than her love for Rumple, the best thing to come from all that had happened to her was gaining Red as a friend.

After two such heartfelt speeches, everyone in the room was choked up, straining to keep from crying openly to spare their makeup from being ruined. And then Snow delivered the coup de grâce.

Starting off speaking about how she and Red had met in Granny's chicken coop and of their many adventures together, she then launched into a colorful retelling of that last day before the Curse when she'd caught Red searching for the necklace she was currently wearing and had called her out over the affair that she'd been carrying on with the very woman who had been terrorizing Snow for years. In retelling that particular tale, Snow mentioned some of the words they'd spoken and how that confrontation convinced her that their bond of friendship was too strong to break even under so grave an obstacle.

"I knew then," she finished to an audience of misty eyes, "that no matter what happened, I would always love you. It wasn't the Dark Curse or what came after it was broken that convinced me, it was that very moment I discovered you were sleeping with my mortal enemy and that to my immense shock, it didn't really bother me at all. That was the great test of our friendship, Red, and we made it through without losing each other."

Taking Red's hands, her expression had shifted into something indiscernible, almost like an enlightened look of determination that made Red shiver against her desire to cry at her friend's heartfelt words.

"I never told you this," Snow then continued, "but I knew that day as you crossed the bridge and looked back at us that you were leaving for good. Whether the Curse worked or not, you had chosen with your heart to stand by Regina, and I was okay with that, because sisters don't say goodbye. We don't say goodbye, Red. You are my sister in every way that matters, and this is not a goodbye, but a brand new hello, the dawning of a new day under which a new friendship will flourish and a new bond of sisterhood will grow. Embrace your happiness, Red, live free and love with all of your heart, because I'll _always_ be here for you. So go out and claim your destiny. She's out there waiting for you...has been her whole life, I think, just like you've been waiting for her."

Having kept it together for the first part, Snow's last words broke the dam holding back Red's tears. Weeping openly, she was sure she had smeared her makeup all over the place, but thanks to Emma's quick thinking and magic, things were sorted in short order, and soon enough eyes were dried and makeup was perfectly reapplied. After a long group hug, the group finally departed the bedroom and made their way outside to where the wedding would be held underneath the apple tree Red had planted with Regina in their backyard to mark the first anniversary of her near death.

"It's a memorial, cariño," Regina had said in explanation of her decision to plant the tree. "With this tree, we will commemorate a profound truth that life can spring up even from death, because there's something I haven't told you. Technically speaking, you died that day, but you came back, and out of that rebirth wounds that would have otherwise remained festering at last began to heal, not only in me but in others. More than anything else, I believe your act of selfless devotion is what saved this town."

After that heartfelt speech, Red couldn't muster up even a weak argument. And so, wielding her magic to enchant the tree to grow quickly, Regina tapped into the ancient power that drove Red's transformations so that both of their essences would be ingrained into the sapling that would soon sprout and grow into a fruit-bearing tree within two years time. Not only was the tree a memorial in the way Regina had intended, but it also became a symbol of their interwoven lives, that out of two very different, very wounded and scarred women, something beautiful and whole had emerged. The True Love and partnership they shared had proven strong enough to withstand any test thrown at it, even the greatest of them all: death.

Not long after Snow's speech, Red stood next to Granny looking down the aisle towards Regina who was resplendent in an exquisitely tailored tuxedo, her face unguarded, free of any masks, and beaming with such love and joy that Red felt as if she could take up wings to fly into the heavens. There in the background, she spotted their tree and remembered. She remembered the feeling of the soil beneath her finger tips, the smell of the air sweet with hope, and the heady taste of Regina's lips after they'd covered up the seed together. That feeling of completeness, of knowing she was where she was supposed to be, was what she felt the moment she caught Regina's eyes only magnified by a thousand.

And as the wedding march began, she realized that destiny was not a feeling or an experience or a road map laid out for her life, but a person named Regina Mills.

"Well, girl, here we are," Granny then said, a wistful expression on her face. Cutting her eyes up to Red, she quirked a crooked smile. "It's not too late to turn back, you know."

"Oh, Granny," Red replied, gazing affectionately at the woman who had sacrificed so much to raise her. There was a part of Red that belonged to Granny that no one could ever touch, not even Regina. It was the part of her that belonged to a girl who was abandoned by her mother but never missed that bond because she'd had Granny to fill it. There were not enough words in the dictionary to adequately describe how grateful she was for Granny or for how much she loved the cantankerous old woman who made her young life so interesting. Gazing at Granny lovingly, Red took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. "It is far too late for me," she then said, "but don't be afraid. This changes nothing for us. You're still my Granny. I would not be here today were it not for you."

Taking Granny's hand, Red lifted them up to her lips and kissed them reverently one at a time, then said the words she should have long ago. "For everything you've done for me, for raising me, for loving me, for putting up with all of my crap over the years: thank you. _Thank you_ , Granny. I love you so, so much. To the moon and back."

Sniffling against her emotions, a solitary tear leaked down Granny's cheek like a diamond finally escaping its prison of coal. "You're welcome, my girl," she said, reaching up to pat Red's cheek. "I love you, too, and I wish you every happiness this world has to offer. In my opinion, no one is more deserving than you..." Clearing her throat, Granny smirked. "And Regina, too."

Grinning, Red let out delighted laugh, what remained of her pre-wedding jitters suddenly dispelled. Having received Granny's wholehearted blessing, Red looked out over the crowd, spotting Clementine clapping excitedly at her from where she half-stood in her older brother's lap next to her uncle David and uncle Killian. Lifting a hand to her lips, Ruby blew her daughter a kiss, which Clementine pretended to catch and then rub in to her cheek. Laughing joyfully, Red returned her eyes to her soon-to-be wife, catching Regina staring at her as if she were the sun itself. A warm ball of anticipation formed in her stomach. All was right with the world. _If this is what a happy ending feels like_ , she thought, _I never want it to end_.

Soon thereafter, Granny was placing her hand in Regina's and proudly announcing to the town that she was the one giving her beloved granddaughter away, and after that, vows were exchanged along with many, many kisses. A plethora of photos later, there was laughter and singing and dancing and celebrating, which turned into a long, languid night full of burning passion that day-by-day bloomed into something wondrously indescribable for Red, a life so full of love and happiness that even her worst days could not dampen.

With her wife and children providing her with such overwhelming joy, Red constantly found herself awestruck. Never had she imagined she could be so blessed. And as only the sweetest of storybooks and fairy tales end:

They lived happily ever after.

The End.


End file.
